


As You Wish

by MizDirected



Series: Mass Effect - Machinations Cycle [4]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: BDSM, Dom/sub, F/M, Friendship/Love, Healing, Heavy BDSM, Light BDSM, Situational Humiliation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:00:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25044295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizDirected/pseuds/MizDirected
Summary: When Jack crawled from the wreckage of the hanar space station, she wasn't surprised to run face first into Spectre Nihlus Kryik's boots ... he'd been arresting her for years.  She wasn't surprised to hear the Council wanted to send her to Purgatory. What surprised her was the option he offered instead.In the Machinations universe, this predates Eden Prime and thus, The Machinations of Exploding Stars.
Relationships: Jack | Subject Zero/Nihlus Kryik
Series: Mass Effect - Machinations Cycle [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/55639
Comments: 15
Kudos: 13





	1. Welcome Home?

“You know,” Jack yelled, pressing her face against the two way mirror, “I thought the interrogation room of a Spectre would be a lot more impressive. This is fucking sad. Did you have to rent one from the hanar?” She squished her face against the glass one way, then the other, rolling her nose around a bit. Despite being pretty sure the glass hadn’t been cleaned in a planetary month, she licked across the entire mirror then back, up and down, rolling her tongue around, making sure the piercing in the center displayed well. 

Stepping back she crossed her arms. Every time, the same song and dance. Maybe just once, they could toss her something new. Anything. A little entertainment to brighten up yet another dingy room. She turned her back on the mirror, arms still crossed, then reached up and tapped her lip. “Hmmm. I’m thinking a plant in that corner.” She held her arms out to indicate the spot. “A chaise along this wall under the mirror, or over on this wall if you like watching yourself. A small table and chairs over there.” She backed up and nodded. “Yeah. We could really turn this fucking hole into something.”

She waited a moment, then smothered a sigh. Kryik always proved to be a challenge. Usually, the cops stomped in and started thumping her around about the same time she licked their mirror. She jumped up on the table, sitting facing the mirror and spread her legs. She leaned back and curled her tongue suggestively, flicking it and licking her lips. 

“Maybe we can make a deal, Mr. Spectre. There’s always room to negotiate, right?” She unzipped her vest, pulling it apart so that her breasts showed almost to the nipple. “Never met a cop who wasn’t willing to turn his back on the door for a second after I bent over for him.”

The door didn’t open. Jack sighed and flopped down in the chair. “Come on, Kryik. It’s not like we haven’t danced this fucking dance before. Leaving me sit in here all day isn’t going to fucking well soften me up. Cold, hard bitch baby, all the way to the core. You know, the one you want to stuff your tiny little turian ….”

The door opened. “Jack, can’t tell you how much I’ve missed that mouth.” Nihlus stepped through, but didn’t close it.

She scoffed. “Not that you’ve ever experienced my mouth, asshole.”

He crooked a finger at her. “Come here.”

She crossed her arms. “No fuckin’ way.”

“Come here.” He stared at her, one eye plate raised. He didn’t move, just stood there, staring at her until her skin crawled.

“Fuck. You know that stare creeps the shit out of me.” She shifted ever so slightly.

“Then stand the fuck up, and come over here so I stop.”

Jack laughed, a genuine laugh. “Wow, Kryik, you’re starting to get a mouth on you.”

“Arresting you twenty-seven times has that effect on me, what can I say? Just come here.”

“Fuck. You’re really going to just stare at me until I do, aren’t you?” She grumbled to herself. She’d been pissed to find Kryik at the end of the shotgun pressed to her temple when she finally dragged her ass out of the wreckage of that space station. It took her three days to find her way out, and the first thing she saw was the ugly mug of the biggest Spectre pain in the ass of them all. 

He cocked a hip and crossed his arms, settling in to wait her out. 

And there was the reason he gave her such a pain in the ass. The rest of the cops and law enforcement fuckers over the years all had buttons. As soon as she learned which ones to push she could consider herself as good as free. Twenty-seven arrests and she still hadn’t found this asshole’s buttons.

He yawned.

She almost laughed, but he intended to wait her out. A decision needed to be made. Outwait him, and spend the next four fucking days sitting here staring at the cock-sucking door and trying not to piss herself. Or, play him. Let him think he’d won and get a little cocky. Couldn’t hurt to let him get a little cocky. She sighed and tilted her head, meeting his stare. Those eyes were as cold as fucking rocks. Staring into them felt like staring into the eyes of a snake or some fucking shit. 

“Fine, for fuck’s sake. It’s just a fucking door.” She shoved herself out of the chair and sauntered over, taking her time. She couldn’t really drag out walking a metre for too long, but she did her best to make it painful. Stopping within arm’s reach, she leaned back on her hip. “I’m here. What the fuck do you want?”

“Look at the wall with the mirror.” He side-stepped out of her way and held out his arm. 

She glared at him through narrowed eyes, but walked past him into the outer room and looked at the wall with the … one way mirror. Fuck.

She ignored his soft chuckle and walked back into the room, choosing to move past the fact that she’d been making out with her own reflection. 

He walked over to the small table and sat down. “We’re on the cusp of a major turning point in your career as a criminal, Jack.” He set a datapad on the table and nodded toward the other chair.

She considered giving him shit, but something in his voice told her that the time for playing games had ended about the same time he set the datapad down. She returned to her chair and sat, slouching as low as she could in it. 

Nihlus sighed, making Jack frown. It sounded sincere. Not the pissed off cop pulling a scared straight scam, but actual concern. She looked over at the mirror, trying to convince her heart to beat at something a little less than heart attack speed. The mirror was just a mirror. She glanced at the floor. Carpet. Not standard industrial flooring.

“Where the fuck are we, Kryik? Have we come to the point where we fight to the death in this tiny box and whoever survives hides the other one’s body?” She tried to make it flippant, but didn’t entirely succeed. 

He nodded. “Close. Where are we? I’ll answer that first. We’re in my apartment on the Citadel.” He held up a single finger as she opened her mouth, halting her ‘What the fuck, Kryik!’ before it escaped her lips. 

She bit down on her lip and clenched her fists. The last fucker who tried to kidnap her for his sexcapades needed to have his head pulled out of his ass by the coroner. Kryik, however, while always a pain in her ass, never pulled any of that sort of shit. Stick up his ass, sure, but honourable, and a clean cop. Leaning back, trying to affect a calm she didn’t feel, she stared into those green, predatory eyes, and waited for him to explain himself. Everyone turned on her eventually, maybe Nihlus just took longer than the rest.

“If I take you in for this, the Council will send you to Purgatory, freeze you in stasis and basically forget the Subject Zero ever existed. They are willing to pretty much fund the entire prison just to keep you locked away.” He placed enough emphasis on her Cerberus designation to raise her hackles, but she bit down on her tongue. 

“If?” 

Nihlus let out another of the concerned sighs and leaned forward, his forearms on the table. “Look, Jack. There’s a reason that I’ve brought you in twenty-seven times, and no, it’s not because I want in your pants. Your history is a nightmare. I get that. People have treated you like shit your whole life. I don’t blame you for taking the road you have. I thought maybe, one of these times I might get through to you, but at twenty-seven, I’m beginning to think that’s a long shot.”

“So, now what?” She bristled. “You put a fucking bullet in my head?”

He chuckled. “Yes. I had my shotgun to your head while you were pinned in that wreckage, but I dragged you out, and transported you halfway across the galaxy to kill you in my apartment. I have excellent maid service.” 

Jack rolled her eyes. “Fine, stick the fucking sarcasm up your ass, Kryik. Cut to the goddamned chase.”

“I have an alternative to propose.” He leaned back. “Your first response is going to be telling me to fuck myself in several imaginative places. So, if you need to go there, by all means. It will be a waste of your time, however. You can agree to my proposal, or I take you directly to the council chambers and turn you over. You might escape, but with Tevos in the chamber, your biotics will be useless. She’s got a thousand years of kicking ass under her belt. They’ll beat the crap out of you, drug you senseless, and that’ll be the last thing you know. Quite literally.”

Jack knew he was right. If the Council sent her to Purgatory, she was well and truly fucked. “What’s your alternative to the human popsicle scenario?”

“You submit to me.” He said it so matter-of-fact that she didn’t understand him.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Complete submission, Jack. I’m talking about learning to trust someone. You could use the lesson. I believe that I’ve proven to you over the course of the last few years that I won’t take advantage of you nor betray trust placed in me.” He shifted in his chair. “If you don’t learn this now, you are going to end up with frostbite on all those body parts you flaunt like weapons until you actually have to behave like someone real.” He chuckled, his expression practically daring her to flip out.

“Submit. To you. No fucking way. You have lost your fucking mind.” It took every ounce of Jack’s self control not to jump straight out of her chair and tear him in half before shockwaving him to hell and back. “I knew it. You fucking pervert. I can’t believe I fucking believed it might be something other than just fucking me over.”

He just sat there and stared at her with that same, annoyingly even stare. “When you’re finished.”

That stopped her dead. She just stared at him.

“I’ll protect you. I’ll push you. I’ll challenge you. I won’t take advantage of you. I’ll stretch your trust and your strength.” He leaned forward a little. “You control the world by beating the shit out of it. It reacts by beating the shit out of you. You can choose to change that right now, Jack. Or you can go in front of the Council and finish the road you’re on.”

“Fuck. What sort of choice is that? Give myself over to your perversions or get flash frozen.” She jumped up and paced back and forth.

“It’s the choice that your lifestyle has brought you to, Jack. I’m giving you a means to change your path. You can take it or you can live with the consequences of your path to date.” He shrugged. “I think you’re worth saving. I think you can be salvaged, but it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be hard and terrifying. I won’t lie to you about that.”

She threw up her hands and let out an enraged scream. “This isn’t a choice, asshole. How is become a turian’s sex slave or get frozen in a supermax prison a choice.”

“It’s two options, you must pick one. Just because you don’t like either option does not negate the choice, Jack.” He let out a grumbling sigh. “First of all, you won’t be my sex slave. I won’t have sex with you unless you ask me to.” His mandibles twitched.

Was that a grin? Was he chuckling to himself over putting her in this position? She should just rip him in half and run. She bristled, on the verge of doing it. Her biotics crackled around her hands and seared up and down her spine, begging to shred him.

“If you run, you know that you’ll be right back here in weeks, Jack,” he said, his voice soft and serious. “And you’ll have killed a Spectre. They’ll probably just space you and be done with it. You won’t be a slave. I’ll push your sexuality constantly, but because it’s the wall you hide behind, but you’ll always have the choice to walk away. If you decide what I’m asking is too difficult, I’ll stop immediately.”

Jack scoffed, but stopped moving. “I say no, you stop? Fuck. Yeah, right.”

“The word won’t be no, you’ll say no constantly, but I’ll give you a safe word. As soon as you say it, I’ll stop, and you’ll have the choice to go before the Council.”

She stared into those eyes, trying to find some trace or hint of what he truly wanted from her, but came up empty. How could he not want anything from her? One rule guided her life: everyone had an angle. She got what she wanted from them and took them out before they got around to turning on her. Anyone who believed differently ended up dead.

Growling, she spun away from him, unable to stand looking into his eyes any longer. Why hadn’t she told him to fuck off and drag her before the Council? Letting out a short, furious huff of air, she dropped her shoulders. Because part of her wanted to believe him. The idea of being taken care of and protected still hadn’t lost its appeal after all these cycles of bullshit. She was fucking pathetic.

Besides, who played the sex game better than her? She’d give him what he wanted a few times, get him to let his guard down and boom, she’d be on her way. Hiding her smile, she nodded. Within a month, she’d have beaten him at his own game and be off the Citadel. This time, she’d lay low, stay off the grid.

She returned to her chair and sat down. “Fine. But if you go perv on me, I’ll shred you and feed you to the neighbour’s cat before I leave.”

He passed her the datapad. “Here are my expectations. You will similarly write down a list of things you expect from me. Ones that are reasonable, and not things like breakfast in bed, I’ll meet. As a guide, expectations I’ll accept are ones like an expectation to keep you safe and to prevent you from coming to harm, whether it be physical, emotional, mental or spiritual.” He walked to the door. “Welcome home, Jacqueline. When you are ready to begin, I’ll be in the living room.” 

Jack looked from the datapad to the door, which he left open, and back. She got up and followed him, looking around, trying to see any traps or cameras. On a hunch, she hunted around for the door out of the apartment. She found it … and found it open.

“You’ll never be locked in, Jacqueline,” he said from behind her. She spun around. He stood at the end of the hall, completely relaxed. “If you leave without my permission, you’ll be arrested and your agreement with me considered breached. I’ll be taking you out in public from time to time. The expectations for such excursions are listed, and one day, when you’ve earned my trust, you’ll be able to go out by yourself.” He nodded, turned and walked out of sight.

Jack opened the front door and looked out, but then sighed. She knew better than to make a break for it in the first five minutes. She scrolled down the datapad, looking for his expectations for going out. When she found them, she read the list a few times.

“What the fuck, Kryik? A leash?”

“The leash is next to the door.”

She looked to her right and sure enough. A plain black leash hung there like it awaited a cocker spaniel with a nervous bladder to come wiggling over to it. She growled and looked back at the list, reading softly to herself. “Be polite to Master and general public at all times. Wear modest clothing that covers body from neck to wrists to soles of feet. If asked why you are on a leash, you will reply that it’s because you act like an animal, and once you’ve stopped behaving like an animal, you won’t be treated like one.” Bullshit! No fucking way. 

“I’d rather be a popsicle, Kryik.”

“That’s your choice.”

She crept down the hallway and peered around the corner. He sat on a handsome leather sofa, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, a data pad in his hand. She grumbled and turned away from him, heading the other way, into the kitchen.

“Am I allowed to eat?” she yelled.

“Yes, if you ask properly. Read the expectations. Start at the top.” 

She sighed and slouched into a chair at the dining table.

“Read number three first.”

Jack scrolled up the list, grumbling to herself. He’d better make his moves on her quick, all the fucking rules. For fuck’s sake. “Okay.” She sighed. “Number three, submissive does not use furniture unless under direction of the Master.” She ground her teeth together. Before she ran out, she would gut him from crest to cloaca and spread his scales open in a fucking blood eagle. Not allowed to sit on the furniture. She stood and wandered the kitchen, scrolling up to number one.

“Submissive must be naked at all times in the home, except for her collar. Yeah, there’s a big surprise.” She thumbed down a few lines. “Number two. Submissive must kneel and present herself properly whenever she enters the Master’s presence, or he enters hers.” 

Taking a deep breath, she put the datapad down. “You are one seriously sick fuck, Kryik.”

“When you’re ready, you know where I am.”

“Yeah, so I do.” She left the datapad on the kitchen counter and walked out through the arch on the left side of the room. At the back of the apartment on that side, she found an office and game room. At the front, a staircase to the second floor and a bedroom and bath. “This place has one bedroom,” she grumbled, walking past the living room on her return to the main floor.

“You’re observant.” He didn’t look up from whatever he was doing.

“Where am I going to sleep?” She edged into the room and peered over his shoulder.

“That depends on your behaviour.” 

She sighed and walked back out. “You ought to ask for a raise. This place is tiny.” When he didn’t rise to her bait, she returned to the kitchen and picked up the datapad again. The universe hated her. If she had to get suckered into house arrest, why did it have to be with the most boring being in the galaxy?

She read down the rest of the list, ask permission to eat, use the washroom, obey all orders immediately and cheerfully, rules for when he had guests over--including female ones ... gross ... fuck! She sighed, finishing the list, skimming the remainder, then walked back to the living room.

“Let’s get this over with.” She held out the datapad.

“Keep it, you’ll need it for reference.” He glanced up. “Have you written your list?” 

She let out a long, mumbled set of curses, and he nodded, holding out the datapad he’d been working on. Taking it, she looked down the list.

“Safe, sane and consensual? Protect me, ensure that all His actions promote my growth and development, never punish out of anger … seriously? This is all touchy feely, wussy fucking crap, Kryik.” She held the pad out, but he didn’t even look at her. “You sure you aren’t a woman?”

“Is there anything you want to add to it?” he asked after a moment.

She shrugged. “How the fuck am I supposed to know?”

“Fair enough. If you want to add something to it, you may ask. Choose a safe word and enter it at the bottom. Make sure it’s something that won’t come up otherwise.”

Jack let out another grumbled string of curses and let her head sag back. “Like what? Fuck you, you stinking sick bastard?”

“You’ll use that a lot. It has to be something you won’t say

She peered over his shoulder, trying to see his face. Had that been a joke?

He leaned back, long talons fishing into a pocket on his tunic. He brought out something shiny and silver and held it out to her. “Here. I found this on my first mission as a Spectre candidate. It’s a silver coin from Earth’s ancient history. It’s always brought me luck. Your safe word can be ‘silver dollar’. If you can’t say it, you can show it. Your mouth and hands will never be bound at the same time without it being where you can get to it.”

She took the coin from him. It had a small hole drilled through it, and a small chain. “Fine.” Maybe it was worth something, and she could pawn it to get off the fucking Citadel after she killed him.

“Sign both datapads, then take off your clothes, fold them and put all your personal effects in that suitcase.” He pointed to a small black bag on the coffee table. “That means all your piercings too. The case will be in the front closet by the door if you choose to leave.”

She scowled and walked around him, studying him. “Have you done this before? Are you some sort of creepy fucker who keeps slaves tucked away in closets?” She held out the datapads. “You’re treating it like some sort of fucking business transaction. Let me tell you, Kryik, this is some seriously messed up shit.”

He shrugged. “Maybe, but it’s your last chance. Take it and sign the pads or don’t.”

Suddenly every instinct she possessed insisted that she run and not stop until she was at the furthest ass end of the galaxy.

“I understand that you’re scared, Jacqueline. You’re terrified to be vulnerable. I will make you more vulnerable than you can even imagine in your worst nightmares. You should be scared, but there’s nothing wrong with fear. Don’t run. For the first time in your life, stop, face it and don’t run.”

Staring into his eyes again, she ground her teeth. “Fuck.” She signed the datapads and threw them onto the couch beside him. After glaring at him with enough hatred to bore straight through him, the couch and the wall behind him, she reached up and started undoing her piercings,

“There’s a small bag inside the case for your jewelry.”

She shuddered, but turned her back to him, opened the case and began baring herself. Despite doing her best to drag it out indefinitely, ten minutes later, she stood in the middle of his living room, completely naked, everything she owned sealed away in the case, her arms clutching one another over her chest. As much as she wanted to flaunt herself, to stand before him with ‘fuck you’ screaming from her every cell, she couldn’t peel her arms away from covering her tits and pussy. Fuck him to hell.

“Good. Come here.” He gestured to a spot on the floor next to his right leg. “Kneel right here. This is your place from now on--seated at my right leg--regardless of where we are, unless I tell you otherwise. Do you understand?”

Jack bit back the retort that instantly sprang to mind. “Fine.” She sidled over and stood there, unable to make her knees bend. She looked down, watching him out of the corner of her eye, hoping that he’d finally lose the creepy patience and freak out on her. He didn’t even look at her. Fucking, fucking, fuck, fuck, fuck him to hell. Lowering herself like all her joints had turned to rusted metal, she finally managed to get her knees in contact with the floor. Death couldn’t come fast enough for this asshole.

He stood. “Okay, toes under you.” He tapped her toes. “Heels under your ass, feet arched, weight on your toes. When presenting yourself upright, back straight, shoulders square, breasts thrust out, hands on your knees, head up, eyes on the floor. With me, your palms will face up, indicating your willingness to serve. When in the presence of others, your palms will face down for now. If you wish to serve others later, we’ll discuss that.” As he rattled off the position, he tapped her with his talons, lifting her chin, pulling her shoulders back. 

After a few moments, he nodded. “Very good. That’s my girl.” He returned to sit on the couch. He laid a small case open on the coffee table. A wide, handsomely-tooled leather collar and a small metal device sat inside. Nihlus held up the collar, running it lovingly between his fingers.

“Placing this around your neck, I take complete responsibility for your well-being. I don’t take this duty lightly, but with complete dedication. Understand, your welfare becomes more important to me than my own. I’ll defend you to the death, protect you with everything I am. In exchange, you trust me and obey me, knowing that no matter how difficult or terrifying what I ask you to do might be, it’s for your benefit. I accept nothing less than complete trust, Jacqueline. Will you give it?”

For maybe the first time in her life, Jack’s head couldn’t create a single smart-ass comment. She simply nodded, believing him.

“You have to tell me that you agree. Without consent, this goes no further.” His voice remained soft, but it carried an edge that felt … safe. Like a wall at her back.

“Yes, I agree.”

He placed the collar around her neck and fastened it, then hung the coin from the collar.

Jack’s gaze slid over toward the metal object still lying on the case.

Nihlus picked it up, turning it over in his hand, and Jack realized what it was. She almost laughed, but then her heart started thumping in her chest so hard that dizziness nearly knocked her over.

His hand pressed down on her hair. “Where do you want it?” he asked, knowing that she’d recognized it as a brand. He pressed the trigger to heat it up.

Jack swallowed hard a couple of times, taking deep breaths. “Back of my neck,” she managed to whisper. 

He gathered up the long locks down the center of her head and swept it forward. “Tomorrow, all this hair goes, Jacqueline. Vanity is a lie.”

She gritted her teeth. She’d grown just the strip down the center since she’d escaped Teltin. She sighed and nodded. It would grow back. “Fine.”

“The correct response is always, ‘Yes, Master.’” He checked the brand with the tip of a talon, a thin curl of smoke rising from the red-hot metal. 

That grated more than him taking her hair. “Yes, Master.” She hissed and bit down on her lip as he pressed the brand to the spot just below her hairline on the back of her neck. After a moment, he lifted it away, then sprayed the area with a disinfectant that killed the pain instantly.

He stroked her head with a gentle hand. “Welcome home, Jacqueline.”


	2. Now What?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack's agreed to all of Nihlus's paperwork ... but what the heck has she gotten herself into?

Jack remained where she was, frozen in place, unsure of what to do. Usually, her default skewed toward whatever would piss off her companion the most. Drive them away fast. Get naked, endorphin rush, chase them off. So far, only the first part of the trio had taken place. 

Nihlus got up and left the room, returning a moment later with something draped over his arm. He took his spot next to her, turned on the vid screen and searched until he found something that sounded vaguely like a volus soap opera. The thing draped over his arm turned out to be what looked like the oldest blanket in the history of blankets. 

“Did you find that in a Prothean ruin?” she said, letting out a relieved sigh as her inner bitch reasserted herself. He hadn’t pulled her spine out and replaced it with … She chuckled. Good, she couldn’t think of anything gooey and fucking sickening enough. 

Fuck yeah, she needed to hang on. Just a few days, he’d think that she’d let her guard down enough. He’d move in, get his rocks off, and she’d jet. Just a few days of whatever the fuck they were doing. Playing some demented sort of mother-may-I version of house? 

Jack started to tremble. Fuck. Great fucking time for the damned adrenaline to wear off. Now he’d be thinking her all mushy and weak. Little girl trembling before the big, fucking girlie-ass turian. Later they could braid one another’s hair and paint their toenails.

Nihlus stood. “Come.” He walked a couple metres, then turned back. “In this apartment, you will crawl on your hands and knees for now. Anything else is a privilege you need to earn. Understood?”

“Fuck you, Kryik.” She stayed seated on her heels and glared at him best she could still looking at the floor. Why the fucking hell was she staring at the floor? Jesus. She looked up, meeting his eyes.

“You know the correct response.” He headed up the stairs without another word.

Jack sat there for a second then slipped off her heels and onto her hip on the floor. She shivered. Fuck yeah, shivering. Screw trembling. The room felt like a fucking freezer. She peered around the corner, but didn’t see Nihlus, so she got up and headed over to the environmental controls. 

“Fuck,” she grumbled. Locked down. 

Upstairs the shower turned on, and she smiled a grin of pure victory. “I expected more from you, Kryik.” She headed up the stairs.

“Hands and knees, Jacqueline.”

She looked around. The sneaky bastard. Cameras. Fuck. First chance she got, she needed to locate every single camera in the creepy fucker’s apartment. Ah, what the hell, she might not be there long enough to care. The shower … what an amateur. She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled up the stairs, pretty sure her skin started on fire about the third stair up, both from the heavy blush and the blasphemy of Jack... mother-fucking  _ Jack _ crawling up a set of mother-fucking stairs. She’d taken twenty bullets and still managed not to crawl. They’d never find all Kryik’s pieces when she finished with him.

She stopped at the top, taking deep breaths of hate-filled air. No fucking way she was going in there shining like a bloody, tattooed beetroot. Keeping her cool had never been more important. Shaking out one hand and then the other, she cursed the damned trembling … shivering. 

“Get used to the idea of being embarrassed,” Nihlus said, his voice soft but carrying. “Come in here, so we can take care of the trembling before you go into shock.”

She scowled. Go into shock? Who the hell did he think she was? She’d slammed a space station into a moon and shrugged it off. Closing her eyes, she set her spine, squared her shoulders and crawled down the hall to the bathroom door, then laughed.

Kryik sat on a bench in a huge shower stall, one foot crossed over his knee as casually as he sat on the couch. His deep red scales and clothing shone, soaked through. His mandibles flared a little as she felt some of the molten-hate-steel she’d reinforced her spine with turn to gelatin. He remained fully clothed. In the shower.

He crooked a finger at her then pointed to the spot on the floor between her feet. “Come in.”

She waited to the count of two hundred before doing as he commanded. The tile hurt under her knees as she moved from the carpet to the bathroom floor, and she started aiming for the center of the dark green, patterned blocks of ceramic. Odd, but she’d never noticed how the glaze pooled around the edges of a tile … Fuck.  _ Really Jack? Tile appraisal? _

Apparently, insanity was a very possible and imminent outcome for her stay with the Spectre. She knelt between his feet, assuming the pose the best that she recalled.

He nodded, his mandibles fluttering a little. “That’s my girl.” He lifted her chin and pressed her shoulders back. “Your eyes are down in deference, Jacqueline, but your head is held high, your shoulders square, back straight with strength. Understand this …” He put a talon under her chin and lifted her face until she couldn’t do anything but meet his eyes. “... submission is not saying that you are less than anyone. I consider you my responsibility, but I also consider you my equal. If I do my job properly, you will become strong and free and beautiful in a way your fear has never allowed you to believe is possible.”

He leaned down a little. “I know how much strength it takes to bend your knee to someone. Two trees stand in the path of a storm. One bends to the winds, one does not. In the end, which one remains standing?”

She frowned and pulled back, shaking her head. What the fuck? Why couldn’t he just stop fucking with her head with all this touchy-feely bullshit and get on with it?

He chuckled. “When you enter my presence, you will bow completely.” Standing, he stepped to her side. “It starts in this position, now lean forward, forehead to the floor.”

Jack looked up at the heavy spray of water from the shower. Drowning. He intended to drown her and say she slipped in the shower. He just stared at her until she sighed and dropped her forehead to the tile.

“Graceful bend to the spine. You’re not a slug, you’re a work of art.” He shifted her a little. “Now, hands stretched out in front of you, elbows and forearms on the floor.” He chuckled. “Although I’m sure this won’t be an issue for some time … if you wish to show affection, wrapping your arms around my ankles and pressing your cheek to my feet is an acceptable method.”

Jack hawked and spat on the floor, then tensed, but he met her rude display with a warm chuckle. He stepped back around her, adjusting the water until it was warm enough to sting a little, then sat back on his bench, sliding back against the wall. 

“Stand up.”

She looked up, giving him an angry glare. “Crawl, kneel, bow, stand... dance little tattooed girl, dance.” Growling deep in her throat, she stood then leaned on one hip, shoulders slouched, back rounded, arms crossed over her chest. “Take a good look, bird boy, but I ain’t fucking dancing for you.”

“No dancing required unless the spirit moves you.” That annoying mandible twitch again, but then he reached out. “Feet shoulder width apart, weight and shoulders square. Breasts thrust out, hands clasped behind your back, chin up, eyes down.” Each direction was accompanied by a businesslike tap of a talon against the offending body part, except her tits. She noticed he gave them a wide berth.

She eyed the shelf along the edge of the shower stall. Sponges, soaps, shampoos, brushes nothing she could use for a killing blow. Well, other than the shelf itself. She smiled, imagining burying it into the top of his skull. 

The Spectre reached over, picking up a sponge and a bottle of something. When he squeezed it onto the sponge, she sniffed and nearly puked. 

“Seriously? Fucking flowery, spicey, girley shit?”

He chuckled again. “You are female, Jacqueline. While you are here, you will be scented as one, and in a manner that pleases me. Not that...” He sniffed. “... wet varren, old fast food wrapper, and axle grease doesn’t have its appeal.” He reached up, gently but efficiently and decidedly-non-erotically, bathing her. When he finished the front, he motioned for her to turn and did the back.

She didn’t argue about turning, then growled at herself. For fuck’s sake, she wasn’t enjoying it? No. No way. Being bathed by her turian slaver fell under the category of creepy as hell, not enjoyable.

His talons closed around one of her wrists, and she realized that he’d removed his gloves. The texture and friction of his hard, calloused skin against hers felt strange. She’d imagined that it would be hard, like krogan shell, not like leather... tough, but pliable.

“Come and sit in front of me,” he said, indicating the spot of bench between his legs.

She bit back a furious grin. Thank god, he did intend to unleash the inner pervert. Turning her back to him, she perched on the edge of the wooden bench. He gathered her hair in his hands, pulling it out of the elastic, then shampooed it, his talons far more gentle than she’d even imagined someone could be. Hell, she certainly wasn’t so damned careful with herself. When he rinsed the lather out, he wound it up into a coil and tied it out of the way.

A scent like … Jack sniffed the steam … what? It smelled like a rainforest she’d spent a few weeks hiding out in: green, loamy, and laced with the delicate scent of tiny white flowers that grew in sheets down the trees and over rocks. 

Nihlus gripped her shoulders, rubbing with strong, practiced hands, the smell cocooning her as he worked on her muscles.

“Do you have a human fetish?” she grumbled. “Herds of swooning Spectre groupies awaiting your talented hands?”

He chuckled. “No.” His knuckles moved down both sides of her spine. “There’s a reason that I’m a Spectre. There’s a reason that I, on very rare occasions, take someone on like yourself.” He poured oil into his hands and rubbed them together, then smoothed it down her arms. “When I was a small child, I was captured by batarian slavers and sent off to the estate of a very wealthy and powerful member of the Hegemony--a pet for his wife. Batarian physiology is not so very different from human.”

Jack jumped up, her arms clamping tight around her again. “No. No... fucking no.”

He held out his hand. “Jacqueline, come back and sit down.” He met and held her stare. “Jack, it’s fine. Come. Sit.”

“It’s fucking sick.” She bolted for the door, but before she could get there, he appeared in front of her, blocking her path.

“No, what was done to that child was sick. I assure you that I am no longer that child. Come back, sit down, and just listen instead of react. That is an option in some situations. Not everything has to be battled.” He held out a hand. “Go on.”

Jack stared at him, heart hammering in her chest, limbs trembling again. He’d stand there all day. Fuck. She backed away and returned to the shower, sitting back down when he returned to the bench.

“That’s my girl.” He chuckled as she went rigid under his hands. “You don’t disappoint, you know?”

She frowned and glanced back. What the fuck?

He just turned her back around. “I don’t expect you to just fall down and do what I tell you. You do realize that, don’t you? You’ve spent your whole life fighting. I don’t expect to change that overnight, nor do I want to. I don’t want to change who you are.” He rubbed her arms, long fingers turning her shaking muscles into jelly.

“When I got large enough to be considered a threat to my mistress, I was sent to a mining facility. I escaped within the first week.” He shrugged. “That’s not exactly true. I slaughtered my way out of the lower mine when there was a disruption. I didn’t know what it was, I just knew that it gave me a chance to take out our overseers and lead a charge to the upper mine.”

Jack let out a long breath, her shoulders sagging a little as she exhaled. 

His hands disappeared for a moment, then returned, thumbs stroking the muscles down her neck, then rolling along the base of her skull, pressing her head forward until her chin touched her chest. 

“I organized the other slaves, we armed ourselves with whatever we could grab, and we fought our way up to where a squad of three Spectres was battling its way in. One of those was a brash young turian. He amazed me, showed me something to aspire to. Eventually, after I found my way back into turian society and then the military, he mentored me in the Spectres.” He leaned forward, his mouth just brushing the bone at the top of her spine, his breath warm when he spoke.

“I know the rage, Jacqueline. I also know the addictive, adrenaline-soaked high of killing, but it’s a road with no good ending.” His arms slipped around her, not intimately, but like one might hold a child. “You can be so much more than you are if you give yourself a chance.” He sighed softly, then let her go and gave her a little push. “Stand up and go stand under the lamp. Stay warm.”

She did as he said, her mind a ball of tangled images and emotions. Unsure what parts she could claim as hers and what parts he’d seeded from his story, she stood under the heat lamp, letting the warmth seep into her bones. At least she’d stopped trembling.

Nihlus wrapped a large, fluffy towel around her, rubbing her skin briskly enough to make it tingle. He removed the collar, dried it, and then rubbed oil into it before holding it up.

“This was my collar. I wore it from the time I was four until that day I escaped. When I took it off, I threw it as far as I could.” He chuckled. “But then, something told me that it would remain around my neck for the rest of my life if I left it there, so I found it and dragged it out of that hole with me. For cycles, it sat on the table next to my bed, regardless of where I lived. Ugly, crusted with the same mud and blood as the day I last wore it.” 

He fastened it back around her neck. “Then, just after I became a Spectre, I cleaned it up and took a penknife to it. After months of picking at it, it became this. Soft, beautiful; still strong, but not a symbol of imprisonment or subjugation any longer. It’s a symbol of freedom--of making different choices, Jacqueline. Remember that.” 

He dried her hair then brushed it out and braided it.

Jack laughed, hard and bitter. “Do we paint our nails next?”

He hummed thoughtfully, his subharmonics thrumming. “What do you think for my talons?” He held them up. “A nice pink?”

Jack kicked him in the ankle, but he just chuckled again and dropped her braid down her back. 

“Come on. Tonight, I’ll give you a break and we’ll order in.”

She grunted like he’d punched her. “You expect me to cook?”

“My housekeeper will teach you.” He nodded. “It’s been a big day, so you can skate tonight.”

“Well, aren’t you the soul of fucking charity.” She took a step toward the door, stopping when he turned back, his eyes looking into hers, then glancing down at the floor. “Fuck.” She got down on her hands and knees. “I swear, you stick a fucking horse or dog tail up my ass, I will murder you in your sleep and host a party to feed them your remains.”

Nihlus shook his head. “Some things you can never be prepared to hear. Thanks for that. Come on, pony girl.” He turned toward the bedroom and strode out of sight through the door.

She bit her lip down on a chuckle. Okay, he got points for that. Grudging, spikey, hate-filled points. She looked down the stairs, reached down with a hand then pulled it back. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

“Figure it out,” he said. She scowled. How did he manage to keep his voice so soft and yet make it carry everywhere? Fucking annoying.

She tried to crawl down face first, but panicked at hanging on that angle with her feet up over her head and retreated back to the top. Checking the sightlines, she started to stand up, but then Nihlus walked up behind her, stepped over and around her, and headed downstairs.. 

“You still up there? It’s not that hard, Jacqueline.” He kept going. “I ordered you some food based on human nutritional needs.” She stared at what he was wearing. It was some sort of robe thing that she’d never seen a turian wear. Well, granted, she’d never been crawling around naked on the floor of a single, turian … She stopped, not liking where that thought ended. 

The robe was sorta cool. A cowled hood over his crest gathered around his carapace, falling in a straight line from his shoulders, accenting how broad they actually were. “Don’t go there, Jack,” she grumbled, choosing to believe she didn’t hear a chuckle from below.

“You look like a fucking monk!” she called down, then focused back on figuring out how to get down the stairs.

She grumbled, then turned around, backing down the stairs. She reached the bottom, sweat on her upper lip. For fuck’s sake. Last night she’d been … Fuck. Right. Last night she’d been crawling out of a crashed space station. She grinned. Amazing fucking crash.

“Come on.” 

She crawled into the living room and into the spot next to his right leg, contorting herself into her lawn gargoyle position. 

Nihlus spread the ragged blanket out on the couch. “Come on. Up here. I want to talk to you about something before the food comes.”

“More crap about feelings? You’re going to make me a fucking diabetic before the end of the week, Kryik. I swear. Can’t you just stab me with hot pokers? Pull out my fingernails with pliers? Stick a rat in a can, put a fire under it, let it eat its way out my guts?”

Nihlus’s mandibles dropped. “That’s a terrible thing to do to a rat.” He jerked his head toward the blanket then turned to look at the vid screen. 

“Fine.” She sat next to him, legs tight together, back ramrod straight, hands tucked between her knees. 

Nihlus chuckled and held out his arm. She didn’t even look his direction. 

Fucking fuck FUCK. Trapped like a bloody uptight nun, buck-ass naked next to the god-damned cop who’d made it his life’s work to stuff himself as far up her ass as he could. She needed to get back in control of this bitch and fast. She slid up the couch, curling her feet in behind her, turning into him, her hand sliding up his chest to grab hold of the edge of his carapace through the robe. She ran her fingers over the material a little. So soft … then realized that she was fondling him.

Arching her back, she pressed her tits into his side, laid her head back and gazed up at him with the most obnoxiously adoring expression she could manage without throwing up.

He watched the vid screen, making no move toward or away from her. She didn’t move her eyes off his face, even when her face started to cramp from a bad case of sycophantic overacting. When the door beeped, he stood up, letting her fall onto the couch. She laid exactly where she fell. He’d have to sit on her.

When he returned a few moments later, he set the bag down on the coffee table, opened it and pulled out a couple of containers. He opened them, placed them in front of her, then walked around her and sat at the other end of the couch.

Jack chewed on the corner of her lip then peered over at the food. Hmmm. Didn’t look that bad. Some sort of chicken thing, with a salad and fruit. She reached over and grabbed a piece of chicken out of the sauce, but it fell back into the bowl as a fork appeared in her hand. She sat up properly and picked up the bowl, stabbing the chicken with the fork, then snapping it off the tines like a varren eating a pyjak.

Nihlus moved the blanket now that she wasn’t sprawled over it, putting it up against his side again. He held out his arm.

“Oh come on, let’s grab a tiny piece of fucking reality.” She sighed. “I’m not your fucking girlfriend, Kryik.”

He nodded. “Very true, nor would you ever be.” 

“Then what the hell?” She stabbed another piece of chicken.

“I’ll explain when you sit here.”

She grumbled. “Sheer morbid curiosity is the only reason I’m going to do this.”

“Tell yourself what you need to.”

She moved over next to him and he wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, pulling her in against his side.

“You know as well as I do the effects that adrenaline and high levels of stress have on your body. I will be pushing you to do things and putting you in situations that will stress your body and your mind to the point where you could go into shock. I’ve taken responsibility for your well-being, made it more important than my own. No matter what I put you through, I’ll take care of you after. Today was enough of a stress that you were trembling. Now, your body needs to recover, and so does your mind, even though I know you don’t think it does.” He nodded toward her food. “Eat.”

She glared at him. “I hate you.”

“I know. Eat.”

He kept her trapped there like a bug in curiously soft and silky feeling amber until what amounted to party time for her. But then he turned off the vid screen and stood. “Come on.”

“We going out?”

“Bed.”

She laughed. “It’s early.”

“And tomorrow will start early.” He turned off the lights on his way through the apartment, and headed upstairs.

Jack stared after him. One bedroom. One bed. Unless he made her sleep in the bathroom or some twisted shit. Maybe he had some weird latex bag that he’d vacuum her into and hang her upside down in the closet. She’d seen pictures of shit like that in a magazine. People wrapped up in human sized sandwich bags. Maybe he’d chain her down, put hobbles on her or cuffs. She’d been cuffed to more than a few beds in her time, but for some reason, thinking about that here, with him, freaked the fuck out of her.

“I’d like to be able to go to sleep some time tonight. If that’s all right with you.”

She growled and stood.

He cleared his throat.

“Fuck, Kryik!” She got down on her hands and knees. Tomorrow, every camera in this creepy fucker’s house was going to meet a terrible death. She crawled back up the stairs and to the bedroom door.

He’d shed the robe. She stared. Really? How had she gone this far and never seen a turian without clothes? Weird. And why did they even wear them? Nothing stuck out on the outside for anyone to see anyway.

He shifted his weight from one hip to the other, his arms crossed, but said nothing.

“So where the fuck do I sleep? Little creepy box in the attic?”

“It’s an apartment, Jacqueline. There’s no attic.”

“Creepy ass box under the bed.”

“Yes. The bodies of the ones before you are still there, in their boxes. I like to talk to them at night.”

“FUCK!” She jumped up, then he chuckled, and she stormed over, punching him in the chest. “Asshole.”

He grabbed her wrist, spinning her around, one impossibly long arm holding her under her chin, her feet off the ground. She kicked and tried to break loose, but his grip never shifted, never loosened, but never hurt her either.

“Striking me is not acceptable behaviour, Jacqueline. You get one warning. Any further incidents will be punished. Do you understand?”

She kicked backwards, but couldn’t find his legs to make contact. “Fuck off. You earned that one.”

“Do you understand? I can stand here for several hours, you weigh nothing.”

Jack wriggled, twisted, tried to crane her head around far enough to bite him, punched and clawed at his arm, but nothing she did phased him in the slightest. He just stood there, holding her up by her fucking jaw. After what felt like two hours, she stopped fighting. She needed to learn how to get out of that fucking hold.

“Do you understand?” he asked.

“Fuck off.”

“The appropriate answer is ….”

“Fuck you, Master.” She gave a good hard twist. 

“I would really like to go to bed at some point, Jacqueline. It’s been a long day.”

She hung there, both hands gripping his arm. He had to give in eventually. She was the most stubborn person in the galaxy. 

_ Come on Jack, you can outwait this fucker! _

He yawned and activated his omni-tool on the arm that held her, blinding her with orange light. The time flashed up. 0030. He deactivated it.

She hung there. 

And hung there.

He yawned again.

And hung there.

The orange glow blinded her, but this time she knew he wasn’t updating himself on the time, but her. 0200

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

Fucking fuck fucking fucker fuck fuck goddammit … “Yes, Master, I understand.”

He let her down. “Now, you were curious about where you’d be sleeping?” He gestured toward the floor. “The position I showed you in the bathroom has a name. It’s called obeisance. It’s the correct position for asking permission or favour.”

Despite every thought in her head demanding that she tell him to stick his obeisance up his cloaca, turn around and stomp downstairs to sleep on the couch, she was really fucking tired. She knelt and pressed her forehead to the floor, arms outstretched. 

“That’s my girl.” He bent down and ran his talons down her spine. 

It felt oddly comforting. She hated that.

“You will sleep in the bed, on my right side.”

She almost looked up at that. He’d waited until now to go full perv?

“Get into bed, Jacqueline. I feel confident in assuming you’re now as tired as I am.” He walked around the other side of the bed, threw back the blankets and just got in, his back to her.

Seriously, one messed up, over confident turian. She could shank him in a hundred ways before he could even roll over.

_ With what, Jack? The tongue on the collar buckle?  _

After peering over the edge of the bed long enough that she started to feel like the pervert, she got up, pushed back the covers and jumped in. Sort of like ripping off a bandage or jumping into ice water. He never moved. She laid on her back, arms clutching the blankets to her chest, entire body rigid. Time passed. Traffic whined past the window. He never moved.

He rolled over onto his back, shifting a bit to settle his pillows under his crest, then started to snore.

Jack rolled over, her back to him and stared into the dark, eyes wide. She glanced over her back, wondering if she could check the time on his omni-tool without waking him. 

God dammit, she’d lost her mind. Gone completely fucking mental in the course of a single day. 

His snoring settled to a soft sort of purr. She flipped over onto her back, then onto her side, facing him. The markings on his face shone an eerie sort of ghostly white against the darkness. The longer she stared at them the more they began to seem like bird’s wings. If she blinked fast enough, they even seemed to move. 

She leaned up a bit, staring at his face for a moment, then reached out a fingertip, running it along the sweep of marking that followed his crest.

“Go to sleep, Jacqueline.”

"Fuck.


	3. To Surrender is Death!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She may have agreed to submit, but ... well, hell, he's going to have to work for it.
> 
> And who's the blue hooker?

**Day Two**

“Good morning, Jacqueline. There’s an entire day ahead of you during which you won’t have to kill a single person, nor destroy vast amounts of property. It’s a good day.”

“If you’re lucky.” Jack pulled the covers up, bunching them at her neck. She’d slept for maybe thirty fucking minutes. He could give her five more. When she felt his side of the bed rise, she rolled over, burrowing into the extra warmth of his spot. Shit, he ran hot. It felt bloody amazing. Like a heating pad.

He gave the covers a hard, fast yank, pulling her halfway off the bed in the process. She hit the floor elbows first, cracking her right one hard. She pushed herself up so her face wasn’t stuck between his feet and glared up at him. Dignified way to start your fucking morning, Jack. Ass end in the air, lips planted firmly on his foot. Way to go, you graceful bitch.

She growled low in her throat, daring him to make a comment about showing affection. 

“Well, she’s a quick study, isn’t she?” a feminine voice said from the door.

Jack ducked her head to the side and saw an asari standing there, arms crossed, hip cocked, an appraising expression on her face.

“Not quick in letting go of the blankets, however.” Nihlus bent over and lifted Jack off the floor. She was too busy staring at the hooker to pay him much attention until he touched her elbow.

“Ow, fucker!” She snatched her arm from his hands and twisted it around to look at it herself. A little bit of rug rash, tiny bit of swelling on the bone. No big deal. She nodded toward the asari. “Who’s the hooker?”

The asari laughed. “You do draw the charmers, boss. This should be interesting.” The asari made a beckoning gesture with her finger. “Up. Get cleaned up and meet me downstairs in ten minutes.”

Nihlus pulled Jack up onto her feet and propelled her toward the washroom, sitting her on the toilet.

“Gross Kryik. I think I can figure this part out on my own.”

He shook his head. “Don’t use it, it’s a chair at the moment.” Opening the cabinet above the sink, he withdrew a bottle and a packet of something. 

“Oh.” She watched him take care of her elbow, her bladder actually becoming somewhat insistent while he did. 

“We’ll put ice on it after breakfast, keep the swelling down.” He stood there, staring at her as if he expected something.

“I’m not bloody pissing in front of you, creepy fucker. Go away. Stare at the asari hooker to get your twisted jollies.” She flapped her hand at him when he just stared at her. After probably longer than it should’ve taken, she got the point and sighed. “I’m supposed to ask permission to use the fucking crapper?”

He backed up a step.

“You know I’m the fucking single most powerful human biotic, right? You’ve been tossed around by me enough to be bloody well aware that I could grab your stupid spikey …” She gestured at his body. “... whatever it is and crumple it into a wad the size of a volleyball. After doing that, I’d probably drop kick you out the window just for fun and watch you bounce down the wards.”

“Just so you know,” the asari called, “I’m a pretty powerful biotic myself. Five hundred cycles as a commando. Since this job pays really well, I’d object to you killing my employer.”

Fucking hell. “This wasn’t in the fucking contract, Kryik. I was supposed to be submitting to you, not some ex-commando hooker.” She jumped up and stood toe to toe with him, her chest pressed into his. He could fucking well stand here until he grew old and died before she agreed to let the asari order her around. She’d piss on his feet if she had to. 

Nihlus just shook his head. “You don’t need to submit to Alessia. She’s here to look after the apartment and teach you the things you need to know. She’s actually here to help you. If you decide to antagonize her instead, that’s your choice. As she said, she’s an experienced commando who can hang you upside down off the ceiling if you force her to. I’d advise another path.” 

He looked down at the floor. “We can spend the next week or so playing the game of wills, Jacqueline, or we could spend the time doing something productive. Either way, the week will end. We will both still be here.” He reached up and laid his hand on her shoulder. “My week will be much the same, either way. Understand that.” 

She glared at him and shrugged off his hand. After a moment, she stepped around him, jumped up to sit over the sink. “Would you mind passing me the paper?”

Nihlus turned around and walked out without looking at her again.

“Score one for Jack.” She leaned to look out the door, but Nihlus was gone, so she hopped down and scooted over to the toilet for paper. Okay. He’d just showed a crack. She could gross him out. Ha! Fuck yah! His week was going to be much the same either way? No way in hell.

“Get ready for a week from hell, fucker.” She leaned on her knees, then yelped a little as her elbow smarted. She glanced at it. “No one pulls me out of bed.”

Boundaries needed to be set. Unless she killed him and ran, she might well end up trapped there for months. They had to be on her terms. She needed to get to him, get him angry enough or lathered up enough to snap. If there was one sure thing in the universe, it was that if you could get under someone’s skin, you owned them. Nihlus could not be allowed to come out the victor in that arena or he’d be sticking her fucking head up her ass doing turian yoga or whatever shit he did to be so fucking soulless.

She needed to be fucking crafty and inventive. And obnoxious as hell. Definitely had to stick her tits and pussy in his face as much as she could manage. He mocked her about using her sexuality as a weapon. Her fucking history showed how well she wielded it. All that shit about trying to help her. She snorted. Right. 

“Wash your bloody hands,” Alessia called up. “You’ll be learning how to cook.”

Fuck that. She’d never cooked a meal in her life, and never intended to. She grinned at herself in the mirror. Well, not a fucking edible one, anyway. Jack opened the cabinet and took everything out. Guy stuff mostly, with some female deodorant, shaving stuff. She took a dark bottle of what looked like turian cologne, opened it, sniffed it. Fuck! If that was what turian females wanted their males to smell like. Gross. She dumped it on and smeared it around. Good bloody flying fuck, that reeked. She emptied the bottle, then turned and went into the shower, fetching the girlie scented body wash shit, and replaced the stuff… that was sort of stinging, actually … in the dark bottle. 

“Now you can smell like a fucking flower, asshole.” She sorted through the rest, grabbing his toothbrush and used it to clean the sink before putting everything back. 

“Breakfast, come on!” Alessia called.

Jack paused in the shower, dumped out all the bottles of girl shit, then grabbed the one tub she didn’t recognize and opened it. It was a thick paste with a pummicey sort of grit through it. After setting it down on the bench, she reached up and untied the braid in her hair, letting it fall loose. 

“Wow.” She ran her fingers through the silky waves. It felt amazing. “Well fucker, you’re going to be well conditioned on your dates.” She dug her fingers into the tub of cleanser and sniffed it. “Well, that might cover up the reek of the other shit.” Working it into her hair, she sculpted a tall, unicorn horn of hair sticking straight up out of her head. 

“Fucking A. Looking good, Jack. One fancy, made up, pretty smelling sex toy coming up.” She put the lid back on the empty container and replaced it on the shelf. She ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, stopping across the counter from Alessia.

Let the games begin.

“So, what’s for breakfast, blue bitch?”

The asari looked up, then nodded toward the fridge. “There’s a roast in there on the second shelf. Knives are in the second drawer on the right. Cut off about four slices five mms thick. There’s a cutting board leaning up against the fridge.”

Jack walked past Alessia, and pulled the roast out of the fridge. She slapped it down on the counter without the cutting board, unwrapped it and rooted through the drawers, tossing everything out until she found the right drawer and a knife. 

“You sure you want to arm me?” Jack asked, spinning around.

Alessia lifted a hand, and glanced over her shoulder. The knife turned, flipped out of Jack’s hand and stabbed downward, burying itself in the roast. “I’m not worried about it. Maybe we could get breakfast cooked before lunchtime.”

Jack pulled the knife out and cut four slices off the raw meat. Fuck yeah, two cms thick at one side, three mms at the other. When she cut them, she slapped the wrapping back around the meat and tossed it on one of the shelves. It rolled free of the wrapping and squelched up against a jug of something. Fuck yeah, bleed everywhere you meaty fucker. She slammed the door. “Pan? Pot? What? Or does he just slurp it down raw?”

“Large frying pan under the range. The dextro spices are in the upper cabinet to the right of the range. I colour coded them for you. Red ones get sprinkled on meat. There’s a list on the door.”

Jack grabbed the pan, slapped the meat down in it and cranked the heat. She looked at the list. “Fuck yeah.” 

_ Thanks for the list of specifically how to fuck with his food. _

Brown ones were for sweet things like cakes. Nice. She grabbed all of them, shaking a copious amount onto the meat. “Okay, meat cooking. Now what?”

Alessia stopped and turned, sniffing the air. “Why do I smell jock itch lotion?”

Jack’s foot slipped a little as she lurched into the counter. Jock itch lotion? Fucking hilarious, but gross. No fucking way he was coming near her with that thing between his legs now.

“What now?” she asked. 

“There are some  _ krellar _ eggs on the door of the fridge. Once the meat is done, crack them over top, put a lid over them until they’re cooked through.” She glanced over her shoulder quickly. “That pan sounds a little hot.”

Jack shrugged. “Looks okay.” She flipped the meat over, and then went back into the cabinet, grabbing the hot and spicy selection, covering the other side of the meat with those. Fuck yeah, Jack.  _ Consider yourself fucking ploughed under Kryik. _ Mr. Emotionless Robot would be hers by the end of the day. The meat turned a satisfying black at the thin end and smoke curled up from the burning spices on the pan.

“Smells like the meat’s done,” Alessia said. She walked over to a cabinet to grab plates, her feet kicking knives across the kitchen to stop against the hall carpet. “Throw the eggs in.”

“Sure fucking thing. How many, hooker?”

“Two.”

Jack cracked the eggs over the meat, then flipped everything around, making sure to get a nice thick ribbon of the burning crap from the bottom of the pan through the eggs. He wanted her to fucking cook. Cook she would. She dug through the pan cupboard, throwing everything out onto the floor again until she found an appropriately sized lid and slapped it on.

The smoke detector went off thirty two seconds later.

“Thought that pan might be running a little hot,” Alessia said, heading over to the environmental controls. A roast pan slid across the floor behind Jack.

“No flames,” Jack said, peeking under the lid.

“They should be done.” Alessia passed her a plate then looked toward the living room. “Nihlus, there’s food.”

The Spectre walked out of the office, setting a datapad down on the dining table. He didn’t seem to notice the smoke still curling through the room.

“Your pancakes smell great, Alessia,” he said, leaning over the frying pan. “If they wouldn’t send me to the emergency room, I’d be tempted to try them.” He picked up a plate, lifted the lid off the frying pan and just served the food out onto the plate. Pans and utensils flew, clanging across the floor as he walked through Jack’s debris field.

“Eating at your desk again?” Alessia asked as he turned and walked out.

“Figured since I’m in, I might as well tackle the eighteen months of paperwork I owe the Council.” He chuckled, picked up the datapad and disappeared back into the office.

Jack watched Nihlus walk out, his eyes on his datapad, not his plate. Well fuck. She hadn’t been expecting a huge reaction, but come on, burned and raw meat with raw eggs.

Alessia passed Jack a plate. “Here’s some breakfast, baby girl.”

Jack grabbed her plate and followed Nihlus into his office. Catching a glimpse of herself in the glass on the front of a cabinet, she stopped, biting back a laugh. Fucking amazing hair. Reaching up a hand, she confirmed it was just as solid as she’d thought it would be. She could charge him, probably drive her horn straight through him. 

She sat herself down on one of the chairs at the poker table, and with a blaspheme that made even her uncomfortable, set her plate down on the playing surface. She stared at him, watching him carve up the meal and eat it without flinching. Not even an eye plate twitch. From across the room she could barely stomach the smell and appearance of what he put into his mouth. She had to give him a point for sheer fortitude.

Well fuck. Oh well, the kitchen was a fucking disaster area, and it would take hours for the reek of the smoke to leave the apartment. At least that would piss the hooker off, because Jack would be six days dead before she picked any of the dishes off that floor. She used to fork to cut out a big piece of pancake and shoved it into her mouth, making the most disgusting noises she could as she chomped on it. She’d ensure lunch met levels of rancid never before known to turian tastebuds.

Three bites in, the hot chilis hit her. She swallowed the rest of the mouthful whole, giving a slight cough. A grudging smile curving the corner of her lip before she squashed it. Well played, blue whore. She cut off another large piece and stuffed it in, prepared for the burn that time. Instead she crunched into a giant pocket of salt. Taking big bites, she started making noises like she was going to orgasm. “Oh my fucking god, these are good.”

Nihlus just kept working, pausing now and again to eat a mouthful of food.

“Damn hooker, you make amazing pancakes.” She cut another piece, finding the garlic before she stuck it in. “I have got to make these for you tomorrow.” Picking up her plate, she walked over to Nihlus and leaned over, blowing in his face with a mouthful of half-chewed garlic. “I like your hooker. She’s tasty.” Chomping a few times in his face, she licked his cheek then turned and walked from the room, swinging her hips.

What the fuck? Jack stopped so short at the door she nearly fell over. How long had she spent leering at Nihlus? Five minutes? The kitchen was spotless, Alessia sitting at the table eating pancakes laden with blueberries from the look of it. Jack slapped her plate down on the table and gobbled down the rest of her pancakes, food flying.

“Doesn’t it get exhausting?” Alessia asked.

Jack shrugged. “I haven’t even gotten started, hooker baby.” She winked and sent her plate frisbeeing across the kitchen into the sink. “Thanks for breakfast. That was fucking amazing.” She sauntered off into the living room. The vid screen and stereo were locked down, so she wandered over to the back corner of the room. 

Books lined the walls. Not just any books, either. The kind that someone lovingly bound in leather and tooled with gold hundreds of years before, and people ever since had lovingly cared for them like their tiny, boring, musty-smelling children. Pulling them off the shelf, she glanced at them and dropped them on the floor. Eventually, she found one she found moderately interesting and took it over to the couch. She sprawled across the couch, one foot tucked up against her ass, the other on the floor, knees spread wide.

“Holy fuck,” she grumbled, looking at the publication page in the front. “1850. Fucking Jesus riding a krogan, that’s almost impressively old.” She thumbed through to the beginning of the book. “So, David Copperfield, what the bloody fuck do you have to do with turians?” She read the first line. “ Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” Jack’s scowl deepened, her eyes lifting to the kitchen and the office beyond. Neither of the apartment’s other occupants moved. 

How the hell? Maybe every book in the place had some similar and fucking gag-worthy first line. “Ham-fisted, Kryik. Ham fisted.” Still, she found herself reading it. 

When Nihlus walked in, sitting at the other end of the couch to watch whatever boring crap he watched, Jack reached down between her legs, spreading herself open, running her fingers over her lips, stretching them out. As she reached the end of each page in the book, she reached up, sliding her finger into her mouth.

“Mmmm, fucking tasty.” She rolled her tongue around the finger, making slurping noises before finally turning the page, then sliding her hand back down. She stopped to play with her tits, cupping one then the other, squeezing them. 

He never missed a breath. How did he even do it? It’s not like he kept his eyes glued to the vid. He looked around the room, alerting to noises and things like anyone else. His eyes just never stayed on her, they slid right over her like she didn’t even exist. 

She closed her eyes, lolling her head back as she pinched her nipples. “Bet you want to sink those big, pointy teeth into these, don’t you big guy? No? How about this?” She spread herself open and eventually moving up to her clit, flicking it, rubbing and pinching it until it swelled and her hips bucked up to meet her hand. She dipped her finger into herself, stroking in and out slowly, curling the fingertip up as she withdrew.

Her breath started to come a little faster. She reached down with her other hand, the book forgotten as a hot, sweet fire started burning deep in her pelvis. The binding of the book touched her, chill and rough, the textured leather and embossed ridges up the spine rubbing against her. She yelped, hips jumping, her eyes springing open to glance at Nihlus, suddenly self-conscious at having a genuine reaction. He just kept watching the vid screen, still showing no sign that she existed, other than taking up space on the couch. 

Fuck it… it felt fucking amazing, and right then her pussy insisted that she continue to conclusion. She added a second finger and then a third, a blush rising up her neck as she wriggled her fingers, her hips jumping up into her hand every time. Staged or not, a good orgasm was a good orgasm. Lifting off the couch, she ground herself into the book’s binding, dragging her aching clit over the ridged binding. Fuck yeah. Print would never have died if women had found out about this.

“Nice,” Alessia’s voice said from the door. “You’re humping 2.5 million credits worth of first edition. I knew there was class in you somewhere.” 

Jack moaned and made a show of licking her lips. “2.5 million credits of fucking amazing, blue whore.” 

She came, arching up, pulling the book out of the way as she came, willing to slick it up a bit, but not willing to destroy it. Juices rushed out of her, and she let out a long cry, thrusting her fingers hard against the spasming muscles, drawing it out. Fuck yeah, not a bad way to torture the natives. 

When her orgasm calmed a little, she sat up, her ass squeaking on the wet leather of the sofa. She chuckled, seeing that her juices had run down the cushion and soaked into Nihlus’s leggings. He still didn’t react, but she hadn’t expected him to. She tossed the book onto the coffee table and jumped to her feet. A grin of victory on her face, she looked down at the couch.

“Don’t worry, I hear it’s good for leather.” She sauntered out of the room, keenly aware of the trail of drips she left behind her. Yawning, she headed upstairs. A nap was just the thing to break up a long morning of being a complete bitch. Tapping those new levels of personal bitchiness, she’d found both new power and new self-loathing. She’d done a whole lot of bad shit in her life and revelled in every moment of it, but tearing someone apart up close and personal like that didn’t sit as easily as she wished it did.

She threw herself across his bed, butter side down, grabbed his pillow and shoved it under her head. Inhaling, she drew back, then buried her nose in it. Fuck, the shit she’d poured all over herself definitely wasn’t his cologne. God, whatever he used smelled fan-fucking-tastic. She laid back down and closed her eyes, quickly dozing off.

“Up sleeping beauty.”

Jack growled but didn’t move.

“You turning down a chance to make lunch with me?” Alessia sighed. “I’m wounded.”

“I’ll take a cheeseburger, real beef, real cheese, ketchup and onions. No fries,” Jack mumbled into Nihlus’s pillow.

“You want food, get your frankly revolting ass of the bed and come down to make it. Wouldn’t kill you to, you know, start getting with the program, either. In a couple of days, you could be going out, doing things. Figuring yourself out.”

“Look whore. You might be as old as shit, but you don’t know everything. You’re his maid, for fuck’s sake. I know myself just fine, thanks for your fucking, nosey-ass concern.” 

“You’re the single-most fucked up sapient life form in the known galaxy, baby girl.” Footsteps retreated from the door. “If they launched probes into other galaxies, just to find life more fucked up than you, they still wouldn’t find it.”

Jack jumped up, storming after her. “Just because someone . . .” She ran down the stairs. “. . . doesn’t fucking subscribe to the bullshit the rest of you call life . . .. I’m not fucked up.”

Alessia threw a loaf of the dextro bread-like substance at her. “Whatever you say, sweet pea. Cut a couple slices of that, and some of the dried meat in the drawer, some of that disgusting brown goo in the jar, and some of the spicy greens. What do you want?”

Jack sliced the bread, carved up some of the raw roast and piled in a ton of the spicy greens, plopping on globs of the revolting smelling . . . mayo? She shuddered. When Alessia let Nihlus know his lunch was ready, Jack sent the plate zipping down the counter, the Spectre catching it neatly in one hand without pausing on his way past. Damn. How did he do that shit? He was fucking five metres away when she tossed it. She needed to step up her game. Bad.

Jack spent her afternoon destroying the apartment. She tossed books off shelves, made works of art out of pots and pans all over the place. She never saw Alessia, but pretty much by the time the last room was trashed, the first room had been put back in order.

The front two little rooms where Jack arrived in the apartment, were locked so she dedicated a considerable amount of time to picking the lock. If he considered the stuff in there worth hiding, she considered it well worth her time to try to fuck with it. Unfortunately, without an omni-tool, her efforts met with frustrating failure.

Alessia set her to making stew for Nihlus’s dinner, and stew it was, even if it looked like someone had already eaten it, then thrown it up, only to have varren eat it and excrete it. It garnered no more reaction than anything else she did.

After dinner, while Nihlus watched vids, she laid along the back of his couch, draped around his cowl like a fucking blanket. When he got up, she fell off the back of the couch, taking a huge slice of skin out of her ankle on the corner of a shelf. Alessia had disappeared mysteriously, so Jack bandaged it herself, shouting a string of curses that would have made any normal being’s ears rot on their head. Nihlus didn’t bat an eye and the little puddle of blood stayed on the living room floor until Jack mopped it up with Spectre expense account papers off his desk.

Nihlus checked his messages then headed up to the shower. In a move that she was absolutely certain would get some reaction, she helped him wash up, paying special attention to the plates that covered his groin. When she finished prodding and poking, she decided that Nihlus was indeed, a fucking turian-shaped mech. He didn’t even start to get aroused. No change in breathing. Nothing. Well fuck.

She dried off and dumped her wet towel on his pillow. When she walked around the bed, she saw what looked remarkably like a dog bed on the floor at the foot. A blanket lay folded in the middle and a pillow sat at one end.

“What the fuck, Kyrik? If you think I’m fucking well going to sleep on a fucking dog bed, someone took out your brain and stuffed that ugly head full of shit. No fucking way, asshole.” She threw herself, spread-eagle across the bed.

When he finished in the bathroom, he just turned off the light, walked up to the bed, pulled the covers up, rolling her off the bed, and lay down. 

“Fuck!” Jack jumped up then leaned over, pressing her face into his. “You think today was bad, fucker? Good luck getting any sleep. I am not a dog. I don’t sleep on fucking dog beds.” She sauntered downstairs, grabbing a frying pan and metal spoon from the cupboard, then returned. 

She banged the two together a couple of times, like she was conducting a sound check. “Got any requests, sexy? No? Okay, I’ll make it up as I go.” She climbed up on the bed, stomping around the mattress, banging on her improvised musical instruments. When she tired of that, she sat on this hip and continued the concert. The first few times he rolled over, she fell onto the floor, but after awhile she started to sense when he was turning and jumped up.

Eventually, he laid on his back, and she just sprawled across him, banging sporadically until she fell asleep.


	4. To Surrender or ... take a nice nap?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being a gigantic pain the the butt is exhausting

**Day Three**

Alessia had it right, being a massive bitch elevated exhausting to all new levels. Mid-morning, Jack collapsed on the couch and tossed the towel over her exposed bits. Frankly, she was getting fucking sick of looking at them. She dropped Nihlus’s newest new toothbrush on the coffee table and closed her eyes. 

Dragging herself off his scaley arse a half hour before he got up, she keenly felt the consequences of a night spent sleeping with all his boney parts jabbing into her, not to mention getting tossed onto the floor every time he rolled over. Which he did a lot, and always toward the floor side of the bed. 

Anyway, she dragged herself up early to smear all his clothes with the bloody meat that she’d taken out of the freezer to thaw in a container the night before. Varren and hungry female krogan would come running for a hundred klicks if he went out later. She’d also disassembled the washing machine, so he needed to take his clothes out to a laundry if he wanted to clean up. Before going downstairs to ‘help’ with breakfast, she unscrewed the showerhead and hid it in a plant.

Breakfast consisted of just a sprinkle of levo flour in his eggs to ensure that he made a lasting impression on his girlfriend and anyone with a nose. Even when he left the apartment, she intended to be very, very present. 

She ate her breakfast hanging over Nihlus’s shoulders, her plate held under his chin. He just worked around her, eating his intestinal upset eggs without an apparent care in the world. Jack read all his messages, rooted through his drawers, played with his chair . . . swivelling it and changing the height. He paid it only enough attention to adjust what he was doing around her.

Fucking well bored tormenting the soulless monk, she left him sitting practically on the floor and headed up to get his toothbrush, not sure what she planned for this one. The previous two had ended up in the toilet . . . oh, and one she launched out a window using her biotics to see how far it would go. It would have travelled a lot further had the living room window been open at the time.

She opened her eyes and stared over at the newest toothbrush. Those fuckers were six thousand credits each. He had to be hiding his and just having the hooker clean the one that Jack messed with. Well, except for the one that landed in that old ladies hot tub. Fuck, she should have written Nihlus’s personal comm channel on it first. He could have had a date for the next night too.

Nihlus walked out of the office, disappearing at the fridge for a moment. Jack sprawled her legs wider on the couch, one leg slung over the back, the other foot on the floor, and pulled off the towel to display herself in all her glory. Nihlus walked in the door, and looked up, but at the vid screen not her. She grabbed his toothbrush and touched it against her inner thigh. Her hips jumped up toward it, and she let out a gasp. It carried a lot of kick.

Fuck yes! Why hadn’t she thought of this before? She touched her outer lip, her hip bucking up into it. She moaned and bit down on her lip. Great jumping jesus on a krogan. Heat blossomed up her face and neck, but she shoved it aside. This was war. In war one had to win their battles however they could. And if they felt fucking amazing, so much the better.

She ran it over her pussy, bucking like a fucking bronc at a rodeo, actually letting out a howl and coming instantly, balling into a massive spasm of pleasure when she touched her clit. It took a full minute for that to relax into easing waves and clenching muscles. “Holy shit. I bet I know why people pay 6000 credits for these now. They never get as far as anyone’s teeth.”

She glanced over at Nihlus, but he just kept reading. Oh well, orgasm afternoon, it was.

Two hours of experimentation later, Alessia stopped, looked down at Jack, cocked her head from one side to the other.

“What do you want, hooker? Can’t you see I’m getting off here?”

Alessia nodded. “Trying to anyway. You’re doing it wrong.” She shrugged and walked through the door into the kitchen.

“What do you mean, doing it wrong?” Jack held up the toothbrush then looked down. “I’ve had five fucking orgasms, and I’m doing it wrong?” She sat up, her ass squeaking on the soaking wet couch, then reached over and grabbed a towel, stuffing it between her legs, then hauling it up like a diaper as she stood.

“What do you mean doing it wrong?” She ran after the asari, clutching the towel around her middle. 

Alessia opened the dishwasher and loaded in Nihlus’s lunch dishes. “If I need to explain it to you, sweetie, there’s really no point.”

“Wow, who would have fucking thought that Mrs. Nihlus’s-Stick-Crammed-So-Far-Up-Her-Ass-She-Can-Use-It-As-A-Toothpick had some freaky shit going on in there?” Jack set the toothbrush down on the counter and wiped herself dry with brusque strokes. “Come on, we’re two women trapped in an apartment eighteen hours a day with a monk, for fuck’s sake. Cut me a little slack. For sisterhood’s sake.”

“Baby girl, if you were my sister, I’d bitch slap you until your tattoos fell off.” Alessia picked up the toothbrush with two fingertips and tossed it into the trash compactor. She scrubbed her delicate blue hands and then sprayed the counter with the bleach cleaner. “Go get showered, you stink like a cheap whorehouse on Sunday morning.”

“Fuck you.” Jack stomped off back to the living room, threw the towel down over her wet spot and flopped down. She turned to give Nihlus a laser death glare, hoping that they were at the very least building up, causing a giant cancerous tumour of hatred in his stupid, passive bird brain. His chair sat empty. She craned around to look in the reading nook at the windows, but she didn’t see him.

Jumping up, she headed into the game room, and found him at the desk, working at his computer. She sauntered over, picking up her book as she went, then stood behind him, peering at his messages.

“Who’s Grenta?” she asked, draping herself over his shoulders to read the message. “Oooo, she must like you. She’s coming to the Citadel and wants to get together. Sweet. Mr. Uptight might get a chance to stick his tiny turian cock into some pussy. Maybe you won’t be such a fucking asshole once you’ve lathered up the old plates. Chuffed Mr. Chunky. Spanked the ol’ spaghetti. Moistened the man-snake. Stowed the load.” She shook her head and sighed. “Nah, I can do better than that.” 

She slipped around in front of him and sat on his lap. “Slammed the salamander. Buried the bologna. Plunged the pink sink. Rode the slip n slide. Tangoed the taco. Plugged the kitty. Rumpled your foreskin.” Peering down, she lifted the hem of his tunic and pulled out the waist of his leggings. “Do turians even have a foreskin?” When he didn’t react to her fingers crawling into his pants, she stared into his face, but he just ducked sideways and kept working. If she followed him, he just moved again. His eyes never once looked into hers. She kicked her leg over his head so that she was sitting astride his lap facing him, then flopped into him, her arms over his shoulders.

“I’m so tired and weak and pathetic. Hoooooooold me.” She cackled when he didn’t, a bitter, angry laughter that cut its way out of her. 

“You going out tonight, boss?” Alessia called from the kitchen door. 

Nihlus turned his head and leaned forward a little to see past Jack. “Yes. Grenta just got back. We’re going to go out later.”

“Excellent. I haven’t seen her in forever. Maybe once my shift is over, I’ll meet you over at the arena and we can see about blowing that damned volus’s team off the top of the scoreboard again.” The asari grinned and blew the tip of her finger like smoke from the barrel of a gun.

Nihlus laughed. “I don’t know. Von has been training them hard.”

“Please, that salarian is so a ringer.” A deep, pleasant, throaty chuckle followed the asari as she walked away.

“I like to shoot things,” Jack sighed. “Used to be pretty damned good at it too, until this female turian Spectre abducted me.” She got up and pressed her nose against his, her eyes staring straight through him. “She was a pretty thing though.” She licked him then turned and strode away, hips swinging.

“Going to help me with lunch, baby girl?” Alessia called.

Jack swaggered out into the kitchen and flopped against the end of the counter island, her arms crossed under her. She leaned on one hip. “Sure, what can I poison o’ great soulless one with today? He eats a lot of the same fucking thing. Makes sense, I supposed considering that he is the most boring, fucked up birdbrain ever, and that’s saying a lot. They are really fucking boring.”

“Like to hear yourself talk, don’t you?” the asari asked, opening a book in front of her on the counter. She looked up, meeting Jack’s glare with a half smile.

“Yep. So, are we fucking cooking or what?” Jack leaned up on her toes to peer at the book. “Excellent, instructions on how to fuck with his food.”

“Since I would like to have the smallest amount of faith that he won’t starve to death or be poisoned once I’m gone, I thought it was time to introduce you to the guide to dextro cooking.” Alessia slid the book over in front of her. “The back section is Quarian. It’s all vegetables, so just forget that. Turians really only eat vegetables if you hide them in the meat. I thought we might try something a little more adventurous for lunch. What do you say?”

Jack shrugged. “Shit, how the hell am I supposed to know? What’s the plan, whore?”

“This recipe is a sort of meat wrapped around a meat and vegetable filling. Why don’t you start getting the ingredients together?” Alessia bent down and went into the cupboards looking for bowls and pans.

Jack just started grabbing things out of the fridge, pretty sure most of them were in the recipe. At least they were all dextro. He should be grateful. She heard that levo-food poisoning was a painful way to die. As Jack started slapping stuff into the bowl, Alessia cooked ground meat. The asari added it blithely, as if she wasn’t contributing to the most disgusting meal ever eaten by turian kind.

“So, hooker, you were a commando for a couple hundred years?” Jack chopped up some crunchy, strange root-like veggie and tossed in the mammoth hunks.

“Five hundred or so, yes. Why?” Alessia glanced over at Jack as if she expected some sort of trap.

“You must have done some really cool shit, so what are you this fucking monk’s fucking maid?” She dumped half the bottle of hot spice into the filling, then the turian equivalent of honey.

“I’m not his maid, and yes, I did a lot of really cool shit. I guarded a very important asari Matriarch, but sometimes oaths made must become oaths broken. So now I help a very good man help others on occasion.” She laid out a gigantic steak and started beating it with a mallet. 

Jack glanced down at the crap she was making to go inside what must be a hugely expensive piece of meat, feeling bad for the second time because she had to be costing Nihlus a small fortune. “Do Spectres make a lot of money?”

Alessia shook her head. “No. Some of them do better than others if they aren’t afraid to take bribes, work on the side for wealthy benefactors, loot, that sort of thing. The honourable ones make enough to survive.” She flipped the meat over, sighed and leaned into the counter as she attacked the steak again.

“And what sort is the monk?” Jack didn’t need the face Alessia pulled to know the answer. “Well, he seems to have cash to burn. The last few days have to be costing him a fortune. I’ve destroyed 30,000 credits worth of toothbrushes alone.”

“The answer is in your question, baby girl. He lives simply. All that crap out there, that’s just distraction for people living unhappy lives.” The asari finished smashing the steak. “How’s destruction of the filling coming?”

Jack slid the bowl over to her. “You think this shit makes him happy? This little hole with its fucking insanely expensive books?” She walked over to the dining table and flopped into a chair.

“Yes, I do. He doesn’t get to spend much time here. He’s one of the best Spectres in the galaxy, so he’s always out there, fixing things, helping people, bringing in the annoying, attention-seeking criminal element.” She slid a grin toward Jack, before looking back at what she was doing. 

The silence drew out between them, but oddly Jack felt no need to fill it. She just sat on the chair, watching the asari work. What the whore had said about people making up for unhappy lives . . .. She wanted to call her on it, label it bullshit, but how long did a stolen sports car or new whatever keep her happy? Maybe if she’d just found a way to be happy with what she had, she wouldn’t be trapped in this nightmare.

Bullshit! She threw herself out of her chair and stormed toward the living room. This fucking nightmare needed to end, even if she killed the fucker. 

“What do you want for lunch, baby girl?” Alessia called as Jack set into the bookshelves, clearing them onto the floor. “Peanut butter and sardines with hot chilis and vinegar?”

“Fuck off, whore. I’m not hungry.” Jack opened the copy of David Copperfield that she’d been reading, grabbing a handful of pages.

“That will only make you feel worse, babe.” Alessia leaned a hip against the couch and crossed her arms. “You know that, right?”

“Fuck off.” Jack slammed the cover closed on the rumpled but unripped pages and threw the book across the living room. 

“Yeah.” The asari sighed. “I love yah, kid, but you are one giant tangle of self-hatred. All this . . .” She held her hands out to encompass the entire apartment. “. . . destruction just makes it worse. Take some time, sit somewhere and just be quiet. Maybe even put the washing machine back together so the boss doesn’t have to go out smelling like he was mugged by a gang of vorcha prostitutes.” She shrugged and turned back toward the kitchen. “Might make you feel better.”

Jack followed her. “Fucking mayhem and destruction make me feel better, whore. Shit.” 

Alessia nodded. “Yeah, make the outside match the inside, right?” She shrugged as she stopped at the fridge and pulled out bread. “I get that.”

“What the fuck do you know?” Jack kept walking, heading into Nihlus’s office. She sat on his lap and rooted through his desk drawers. Finding what she wanted, Jack turned to kiss him. “Fucking mayhem and fucking destruction.” Tossing her giant, mostly broken horn of hair over her shoulder, she got up and skipped her way back to the living room. 

“Hold my calls, blue whore. I have a busy afternoon ahead.” Jack flopped down on the carpet, grabbed the sofa in a biotic field and flipped it upside down. “Shit yeah,” she said, chuckling to herself. “It’s only supposed to take a drop. Let’s find out.” She applied a drop of superglue to the feet of the sofa, then biotically lifted it to the ceiling.

An half-hour later, Alessia set a plate down on the floor next to Jack. She looked up and sighed, lifting a finger to tap her lips. “I don’t know, I think this whole art nouveau . . . or was it arta fantastica? . . . anyway, the whole movement was highly overrated.” Nodding, she headed back out into the kitchen. “Very overrated.”

Jack grumbled, “I’ll fucking overrate you, blue hooker.” 

She spent the afternoon sticking all the furniture in the apartment to the ceiling, only stopping when Alessia called her to help make dinner. 

“Oh yeah, blue bitch. I’ll make some fucking supper his date will never forget.” 

“Just reheat some of what we made at lunch in one of the frying pans, baby girl,” Alessia told her. “Cut it pretty thick.”

“Will do, whore baby.” Jack cut huge slices, then dug out some of the stuffing, sticking a huge dollop of peanut butter in the middle of each before replacing the stuffing. She fried it up nice and crispy brown, sprinkling on a variety of aromatics to help cover the scent of peanuts. When it was heated through, she slapped it on a plate and slid it onto the counter.

“Nuts react particularly poorly,” Alessia said, leaning close to whisper in Jack’s ear. “Hospital, possible death if not caught in time.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jack said, slapping it down on the counter.

“Nihlus!” the asari called. “Dinner’s ready.” She turned to the stove, focusing on a pot of boiling pasta.

The turian walked in, picked up the plate, and cut off a large bite as he turned back toward his office, apparently not noticing the lack of a dining room table as he walked underneath it, the backs of the chairs brushing his crest. Jack watched as he raised the bite to his mouth, showing no sign of being willing to break the facade even to save his own life. 

As he put the bite in his mouth, Jack leaped forward and knocked the plate out of his hand. “Don’t be fucking stupid, Kryik. Shit.”

He just kept walking, chewing on the mouthful, so Jack jumped in front of him, pried his mouth open and took it out, throwing it on the floor as well. 

“For fuck’s sake, Kryik. You got a deathwish?” She wiped her fingers on his tunic, stepping back as he pushed past as if nothing had happened.

The door alert chimed, and Jack grinned. The girlfriend. Oh, this was going to be good.


	5. Sweet Relief ... how I Adore You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nihlus takes a much needed break from his charge.

**Day Three con't**

The salarian female on the other side of the door surveyed Nihlus from head to toe then back again, her gaze feeling oddly like reconnaissance. “Look like complete shit, Kryik.”

Nihlus gave her a tiny shake of his head as Jack bounded past him, running right up into Grenta’s face. It actually impressed him that the salarian didn’t move. She’d been one of the most reactive people he’d ever met, but her eyes didn’t even leave his. He let out a nearly imperceptible sigh.

Most reactive person he’d ever met . . . present company excluded.

“Is this the girlfriend, Kryik? She’s pretty.” Jack patted Grenta’s face. “Ooo, her skin is so soft, like velvet.” She stuck her fingers in the corner of the salarian’s mouth as if trying to see inside. “Is it true that salarians have really long tongues? I bet that works for you.” Jack wrapped her arms around Grenta’s shoulders, squeezing her tight. “Can we keep her? She’s just so fucking cute. I could kiss her every-fucking-place.” She laid her head on the salarian’s shoulder instead, eyes closed, cooing softly to herself. 

Nihlus stepped around Jack and slipped his hand under her, subtly helping tug Grenta out of her embrace. “So, where have you been?” He ushered her down the hall, intensely grateful that Jack seemed to think that stepping beyond the apartment’s threshold would result in something catastrophic.

“Don’t be out too late, Nihly. You know how hot my pussy gets for you.”

“Out in the traverse,” Grenta replied, her face twitching ever so slightly at Jack’s shouted admonition. “Believe it or not, there’s rumbling about geth moving outside the veil. I didn’t see anything while I was out there, but the Council wants me to keep an eye on.”

“Okay then.” Jack called, edging out the door. “Make sure to use protection! You know how these soldiers are . . . a new bang in every port!”

Nihlus palmed the elevator control even before they stopped, praying silently for the elevator spirits to be kind and send it before Jack came after them. “Geth? Really? I can’t blame them for wanting to keep an eye on that.”

The elevator opened and they stepped inside, Nihlus slipping his hand through Grenta’s elbow in his haste to escape and just be able to move inside his own skin.

“Bye! I love . . ..”

The door closed on the last of Jack’s shouts, and Nihlus stumbled backwards, sagging against the wall. “Thank the spirits.” 

Grenta laughed, a quick chortle, as she turned and leaned against the side wall, her arms crossed. “She looks like a lively one. How’s it going?”

“I’m so hungry.” He chuckled and laid his hand on her arm. “If I pass out, drag me to the nearest dextro restaurant, and shove a steak down my throat.” He straightened and let out a sigh that started at his crest and went all the way down to his feet. “I’m glad you messaged today. If I’d had to spend another night in there, I couldn’t have been held responsible for the consequences.”

Grenta pulled her head back and frowned. “Because of the girl? You possess more patience than any thirty-five people I know.”

“No. I can ignore her as long as I need to, she’s actually very entertaining. It’s all the paperwork, and the vids.” He shuddered. “I’ve been watching the most boring shit I can find, trying to keep provoking her.” Stepping up to the door as it neared the lobby, he shook his head. “If I have to watch another documentary on Earth mammals and their mating/hunting habits, I’ll slaughter half of Zakera Ward before the mania breaks.”

She stepped up next to him. After a second she sniffed the air, first one way, then another, finally honing in on him. Her delicate features wrinkled with distaste, her large copper and chocolate eyes narrowing. “Why do you smell like the back alley of the pleasure district?”

He tried to ignore her question for a moment, then sighed. “Is it that bad? I’ve lost my sense of smell. She doused herself in a very acrid unguent yesterday.” He sighed and held his arm in front of her face. “Are people going to be moving to the other side of the restaurant?” 

She flinched away and gave him a worried scowl. 

Lowering his arm, his sub-vocals rumbled with resignation. “You would not believe the things she’s smeared on me crawling over me.” He sniffed himself in a couple of different places. “Okay, if I pass out, drag me to a store, spray me with environment freshener, then the restaurant.”

“Judging by the scent …” She leaned in and sniffed again. “... most of what she rubbed on you came from between her legs.”

“I would’ve changed, but she rubbed the rest of my clothes with raw meat and blood, claiming it would help me get a krogan girlfriend, or eaten by varren.” He laughed, his eyes remaining fixed on the door, eager for it to open and release him. “She’s amazing, Grenta. If she ever gives up and starts the work, she’ll be unstoppable.”

Grenta cleared her throat and shot an expression at him that just registered as salarian. That mixture of being too damn smart for their own good along with infinite patience for those too slow to keep up. “Were your table and chairs all on the ceiling?”

He nodded, his mandibles flicking hard. His hands made vague gestures in the air before he decided on how to explain it. “It kept her out of trouble this afternoon. Anything not nailed down or being sat on is now all ceiling art.” 

They got off the elevator in the main floor lobby. “So, you’ve been out in the traverse for a while, where do you want to eat?” He stepped out slightly ahead of her, glad to be able to stretch his legs and just let down his guard. A prisoner released from a cell of his own making, he found himself nearly jogging across the lobby, until he heard Grenta’s reply coming from a little too far behind him.

She laughed as he stopped to wait for her to catch up. “You’re the one locked in hell for two days, you choose.” She stepped onto the strip and held out her arms wide. “You’re free, my friend. The Citadel awaits.”

He rubbed his talons together, his stomach growling in anticipation. Well, either anticipation or because of the meals he’d previously eaten. Indigestion with catastrophic consequences couldn’t be ruled out after two days of ingredients not meant to be mixed, let alone mixed, eaten burnt black or raw. Squelching a sick sort of half belch, he pointed to his right. “Callighan’s.”

“You all right?” She stepped aside and back just in case he splashed the contents of his guts across her boots. 

He took a deep breath, shoving the thought of the things he’d forced himself to eat out of his head before he did throw up, and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. You just would not believe the things I’ve had to eat because she doesn’t just make the most disgusting raw, foul tasting crap, she sits there to watch me eat it.” He held out an arm to guide her toward his favourite restaurant, then took a couple of jogging steps to fall in beside her. 

He chuckled in anticipation. “Tonight is all about a gigantic burger and more turian ale than I really should have before arming myself.” He positioned himself just slightly in front of her, marveling again at how a Spectre could just let crowds shove her around the way Grenta did. Although, her speciality  _ was _ infiltration rather than direct combat. She flew under the radar better than anyone he knew, but it also meant that in order for them to get anywhere, he needed to part the crowd.

At Callighan’s, he opened the door, ignoring her chuckle as she entered ahead of him.

“Vestige of a bygone era, Kryik,” she said under her breath. 

He shrugged and flicked his mandible at her. “It saddens me that manners are considered part of a bygone era.” Holding out an arm toward a free table in the back corner, he waited for her to go ahead. Following, he took in the place, force of habit looking for threats in every face, every dark space, everywhere. As crazy as she behaved, Jack seemed the sanest part of his life.

He sat across from Grenta, his eyes still watching everywhere from under lowered brow plates. Ordering his meal from memory, he relaxed ever so slightly into the bench behind him. Paranoia became a way of life after enough cycles of random idiots thinking Spectres would be easy prey while just out living what small part of their lives remained normal. Well, unless the Spectre was Saren Arterius.

“You losing your mind over there?” Grenta asked. She looked over her shoulder at the room, but didn’t seem concerned with anything she saw. When she looked back at him, she cocked her brow. “You see something to be worried about, Nihlus?” Lifting both hands to the tabletop, she rested her fingers carefully, relaxed, but he knew that her shotgun remained no more than two seconds from belching a spike into someone.

Nihlus let out a sigh and shook his head. “No. I’m just on edge. Probably some combination of starvation and poisoning.” He gave her a hesitant smile, his one hand making its way to his hip to rest on his sidearm despite his assurance. “I’ve felt something going on. Now hearing that Geth are on the move . . ..” He leaned forward, shifting his backside closer to the back of the bench before relaxing again. “You ever had the feeling that there are puzzle pieces floating all around you, moving into position, but the picture is still impossible to see?”

Grenta shrugged a little. “Are you sure you haven’t lost your mind?”

He chuckled, finally letting his hand drop from his side arm to his thigh. “The Council will certainly think so when they get eighteen months of expense reports at once, several of them covered in blood. They’ll probably think it’s part of my campaign to get our weapons and upgrades covered. Use my expense reports to kill the enemy to save credits.” The talons of his other hand tapped restlessly on the table, drumming out a random beat as he shifted again.

“Nihlus . . . first of all, relax. I’m supposed to be the quick, nervous one. You’re supposed to be the calm one. Second, what about your expense reports?” Grenta’s brow furrowed.

“Jacqueline was lying on the back of the couch last night, draped over my carapace to get my attention. I stood up and she fell backwards off the couch, took a chunk out of her ankle.” His fingers sped up on the table top, at least until Grenta reached across and slammed her hand down hard enough to smart, even through his glove. “Sorry.” 

He took a deep breath and stretched his neck side to side. “I’ve ignored a lot of crap in the past two days, Grenta, but her hurting herself . . ..” He shook his head. “I had to just go up and shower, get ready for bed. Luckily, hurting herself pissed her off and gave her a second wind. She used the expense reports to mop up the blood, then spent the night sitting on top of me smashing pots together, but I came close to caving in.”

“And then back to square one.” Grenta pulled her hand back.

Nihlus shook his head. “No, not with Jacqueline. If I break for an instant, she’ll be lost. She’s so stubborn, so unable to trust, that I have one shot of doing this right. I just hope that I’m reading her properly. If I left too soon, she’ll just stomp around destroying everything I own.”

“She was hanging on you.” Grenta shrugged. “Sounds like she was starting to look for connection.”

He nodded, then sat up, his mandibles flicking as their food arrived. “Oh spirits, so hungry.” 

“This place disturbs me,” Grenta said, looking down at her dinner then around them at the other diners. “It’s supposed to be a human pub, yes?”

Nihlus just nodded as he stuffed five french fried tubers into his mouth.

“But the food is all alien replications of human food?”

“Is there a point?” he asked, while chewing.

“It’s strange. That’s my point. There isn’t a human in the place.” She picked up her utensil and picked delicately at the combination of greens and seeds and what smelled to Nihlus like some sort of soy-based cheese imitation.

He took a bite out of his burger, letting out a groan of pleasure that made everyone within earshot turn to stare. He chuckled and gave them a nod.

“Forgive my friend, he has a very intimate relationship with his food,” Grenta said, her face turning a light shade of green. Shaking her head she stabbed violently at her salad. “Try to control yourself.”

Nihlus shook his head. “Can’t. I have no idea what a human burger tastes like, but their turian ones are pure hedonism. That’s why this place is always packed.” He nodded at her dinner. “Is that not some version of salarian nirvana?”

She shrugged, the slight green tinge to her skin deepening, and her stabbing became more pronounced. “Can’t resist chance to get under my skin, even after all this time.”

He chuckled and drank half his ale in three swallows. “When will you stop letting me?”

They ate in silence for a few minutes, Nihlus having to stop for a break, having eaten the first part of his meal so quickly, it all lodged partway down. Grenta got up, excusing herself for a moment, most of her meal finished, so Nihlus took the opportunity to check in with Alessia, make sure the apartment hadn’t been burned down.

“Kryik’s house of I can’t sit down anywhere because I’m afraid of pulling the ceiling down on me along with the chairs, how may I be of service?” the asari answered.

Nihlus laughed. “How’s it going back there? Other than not being able to sit down?” He tapped two talons against the table, semi-positive that Alessia would report that at least two walls had major holes in them.

“Peaceful. I think she’s making a sculpture out of your OSDs and that brown mayo crap you eat.”

“Think it’s safe to leave her?” He grinned at Grenta as she returned, his mandibles fluttering.

“Oh, sure. Not for the apartment, mind you, but safe enough for her.”

Nihlus picked up a tuber and scraped it around, sopping up the juices from his burger. “Then get over here and meet us for a few drinks. You’ve got to be ready to kill something.”

“Callighan’s?”

He chuckled. “You know me too well.” He popped the fry in his mouth.

She snorted, a very un-matronly sound. “Damn right I do. See you in a few.”

“Alessia killed her yet?” Grenta asked, sliding into the booth.

“No. I’m glad she agreed to do this. She wraps Jacqueline around her finger in a second and a half. It’s hilarious. Knows just how to play her.” Nihlus ate another mouthful. “Oh Spirits, it’s good to eat something that isn’t raw or burned or covered in sweets or so hot it actually made the lining of my mouth peel away.”

“She’s really putting you through the wringer.” Grenta shook her head. “Must be quite the change after the scrawny little salarian slave you dragged out of that batarian whorehouse.”

Nihlus smiled again, his mandibles fluttering a little. “You had your challenges.”

“You thinking a couple of months, and find her a place somewhere? Maybe that human school for biotics?”

He shrugged. “I have no idea. I never do, but with Jack, I’ll be surprised as hell if she’s stopped trying to poison me with my breakfast in a few months.” He motioned toward her plate. “Finish eating. Alessia is going to meet us in a few minutes, and the proper drinking can get started.”

“Then what? Armax followed by drinking ourselves into oblivion and passing out at Alessia’s place?” Grenta ate quickly, just as she did everything else.

Nihlus nodded and shoved another two turian french fried tubers into his mouth. “I need to keep an eye on her while she’s alone. I want to give Jack a couple of days with no company but her head. Let her realize how alone she is.” He took another giant, moan-accompanied bite of his burger. “Spirits, this is amazing.”

He retraced his train of thought, then shrugged. “I stayed long enough to make my point. Now, as much as I hate it, she needs to get knocked off her hinges a bit.”

“More brutal than your usual, Nihlus. You didn’t leave me alone for a second.” Grenta polished off the last of her slimy greens and wiggly things that the menu declared was the salarian version of a ceasar salad.

He winced and averted his eyes. “I couldn’t or else you’d try to throw yourself out a window. It was like watching a bird crashing into the glass over and over.” Finished his burger and polishing off the ale, lifting a hand to the server to get another.

“Would’ve made it through,” Grenta argued, “eventually.” She sipped at her cocktail, making him grin. She’d come so far, but tiny connections remained to that terrified slave. The fruity-smelling pink drinks being one of them.

Nihlus chuckled. “If you hired a krogan, or had Jacqueline launch a toothbrush through the window first.”

“Launched a toothbrush through the window?” Grenta leaned back. “Now you’re stretching.”   


He finished his meal and slid the dishes to the side of the table. “Like a rocket. Landed in the lady across the ward’s hot tub.” He gave the server a smile and nod as he slid drinks in front of them. “Her biotics are impressive. We keep downplaying them, but I’m fairly sure she could take Alessia if she was pressed.”

“She could kick my ass ten ways from Tuesday,” Alessia said, sliding in next to Nihlus, bumping him over with her hip. “But let’s not tell her. I’d rather not get my ass handed to me while I’m on vacation.”

Grenta laughed. “You spend your life fighting out in the traverse and terminus, then spend your months of vacation time, cleaning his apartment and babysitting headcases?” A tiny sigh escaped her wide mouth as she shook her head. 

Alessia gave the salarian a broad wink. “You were a joy. Who doesn’t like coming in, opening a cupboard and finding a tiny salarian hiding behind the vacuum cleaner?” She sniffed the air. “What is that stench?”

Grenta let out a high laugh. “Nihlus.”

“Wow, that is foul.” She leaned closer, sniffed and gagged. “I need a drink if I’m going to sit next to that.” She grabbed the datapad for the drink menu and ordered. “What is that? Omega brothel after two-for-one Vorcha night?”

“No, I’m thinking boy’s dormitory at basic,” Grenta said. “All those socks, so dirty with so many things.” 

Nihlus winced. “Finish your drinks and let’s go shoot some things before I turn people off their dinner.”

“My drink hasn’t even arrived.” Alessia laughed and bumped him a couple of times with her shoulder. “Relax, unwashed krogan codpiece marinated in a hanar breeding tank, I smell good enough to cover your stench.”

“Bottom of a pyjak shipping crate after three months of transit,” Grenta said, decisively.

Alessia turned to look into Nihlus’s eyes, hers sparkling. “Yes! Pyjaks rut under stress. Well, that and defecate.” 

He bumped her. “You could have fixed the washing machine.”

“Yeah, but then I’d be missing this aromatic wonder.” She winked at the server as her drink hit the table, then slammed it back and stood. “All right, let’s go kill holograms.”

Nihlus swiped his omnitool, paying the bill, then followed her out of the booth. He waited for Grenta to go ahead before following them to the door..

The three of them stopped dead as the door opened, someone blocking their path. Nihlus hesitated for a moment, then grinned and reached out to clasp the other man’s arm. “Saren! When did you get back? They’ve had you out in the field for months.” 

The Spectre gripped Nihlus’s arm and nodded to Grenta and Alessia. “Nihlus. Alessia. Grenta. Got back this morning. Turning right around and going out as soon as we resupply.” He turned to look at Grenta. “They have you out chasing rumours of Geth?”

She nodded. “Rumors along border between the Perseus Veil and Traverse. Haven’t found anything. Spooked colonists.”

Saren nodded and released Nihlus’s arm. “Heard you have another pet? Human, this time.” He laughed and pushed past. “Throw that one back, Nihlus. The humans are a waste of oxygen.” He lifted a hand in a wave and strode further into the restaurant. A few steps in, he turned back. “Alessia, you want me to send Benezia your regards?”

The asari’s eyes narrowed as Saren chuckled, the sound cold as ice.

“Know Saren’s your mentor, but gives me screaming willies,” Grenta whispered.

Nihlus nodded, watching Saren walk away. He turned back and led the way out onto the street, crossing to the other side. “He’s severe, and he spends too much time alone to have interpersonal skills, but he’s a good man at his core.”

“Hates the humans.” Grenta fell behind, small and light for a salarian, the crowd jostled and pushed her along. He moved to create a buffer for her, but . . .. “For pity’s sake, back off!” She brushed off the front of her armour as the crowd split to give her room. “Thank you.”

Nihlus nodded, hiding a smile at the way his meek little pupil had grown. A year ago he’d had to carry her out the door of his apartment to get her to leave. “Yeah, Saren does hate humans. That part worries me. Maybe if we get a human Spectre or two in the ranks, he’ll relax.” 

He wrapped his arm around Alessia, offering silent support. She returned the gesture, but didn’t speak, trembling against him ever so slightly. Saren did her head in every time.

“Or kill them.” Grenta sighed.


	6. Surrender or ... Well Frick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nihlus returns and Jack struggles with facing herself.
> 
> Trigger warning for acting out due to childhood abuse. Self-abuse ritual. potential trigger marked by &&&

**Day Four ... early**

“So, you’re just going to sit here all night and watch her?” Alessia asked, plunking down on the couch next to Nihlus. She took the binoculars from his hand and looked through them across the way. Jack paced back and forth in front of the large picture window. “We need to have a talk with that girl about not giving the entire Citadel a front row seat to her naked self.”

Nihlus let out a chuckle that amounted to a soft puff of air. “She attaches so little worth to her body and her modesty.” His brow plates and mandibles dropped. “She’s one of the saddest people I’ve ever met.”

“You want me to order in pizza? We can turn on a movie and pretend to watch it.” The asari glanced over at Grenta, the salarian already curled up on the loveseat, sound asleep. “Looks like it’s just the two of us.”

Nihlus nodded and took the binoculars back. “Sure, although I don’t think I’m going to last very long, either. I just want to make sure that Jack isn’t freaking out.” He watched her pace, her lips moving, arms gesticulating with enough anger that he felt pretty sure about the contents of her rant. Spirits, she was something. He smiled and shook his head. If she could just get past all the self-loathing and fear. 

He let out a long sigh and lowered the lenses, able to see her well enough without to tell she wasn’t getting into trouble.

Over the next several hours he pretended to watch a vid and enjoy the pizza, but it was almost a relief when Alessia headed up to bed, leaving him to lie out on the couch, watching his protege work herself to exhaustion. He fell asleep just after Jack finally did. She wrapped herself in the old blanket and curled up in a ball on the floor in the living room, not bothering to pull the furniture down off the ceiling. So stubborn.

Overnight, he woke hourly, checking on Jack and then lapsing back into unconsciousness. It made for a restless night, but not nearly as restless as Jack’s. She was up and down all night, checking the doors, wandering the apartment, and raiding the fridge. It hurt him to watch her in such a state of complete distress, but he needed to shake her loose, rattle her good and deep so that when he and Alessia returned, it might be to a more productive atmosphere. Sometimes the best way past resistance wasn’t the kindest way.

Still, he hated it; every minute weighing on him heavier than the one before as Jack’s upset grew. He knew that, unreasonable or not, part of her brain screamed at her that she’d been abandoned, again. As much as he needed her to face that fear and realize that he would come back, when the twenty four hours ended, he grabbed his things and practically bolted out the door. 

“I’ll be right there,” Alessia called after him. He chose to pretend he didn’t hear her laughing.

* * *

Jack ran at the door, stopping just short of punching Nihlus again. “What the fuck Kryik? You just leave me here for two days? Not even the blue hooker comes by? I could have fallen down the stairs and died because I didn’t have my omni-tool to call for help.”

He walked past her, heading for the stairs.

“You could have been shot and died in some back alley, but because I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, no one would go looking for you. No one would come here to tell me. I would have eventually had to leave and got stuck in fucking Purgatory for trying to get some damned groceries with no money.” She belted after him, climbing the stairs right beside him. 

“Where was the blue whore? Is she your hooker maid or not dammit? For fuck’s sake, Nihlus. You don’t just abandon someone in your apartment for two fucking days to bang a salarian.” She followed him into the shower, so angry that she vibrated with rage. “What kind of a sick fuck does that to someone?”

He stripped off his clothes and turned on the shower.

“I want to punch you so badly right now that I could ....”

“When you’re done screaming loud enough for the Council to know you’re here, come help me with some supper.” Alessia’s voice echoed up the stairs and down the hall.

Jack glared at Nihlus for a few more seconds, then growled and spun, storming out of the bathroom. “And where have you been, blue whore? Out embracing eternity with every sailor in port?”

“Exactly. That and taking a day off from your beautiful face.” She took Jack’s chin between her thumb and forefinger. “Eggs and roast, my darling.”

Jack pulled away. “Don’t touch me. Who knows what sort of dick that hand’s been wrapped around.” She went over to the fridge and got out the stuff to make supper. “I’m fine by the way. I didn’t break my neck or anything.”

“Glad to hear it. What did you do with your time?” Alessia opened the fridge and rustled around in it.

Jack shrugged as she sliced the meat. “I don’t know. Glued all his underwear shut, put tacks on the inside soles of his boots. Drew red lips on the crotch and ass of all his pants. The usual.” She pulled out the frying pan and put the meat in it, then spiced it. She walked over to stand beside Alessia. “Not like there were vids to watch or anything.”

“Finish David Copperfield? Or just finish on David Copperfield?” Alessia grinned at her.

Jack bit back a smile, covering it with a scowl. “Of course I didn’t fucking finish it. I don’t read shit like that. Fuck.”

“Poor ol’ Barkis ... so far gone that the College of Physicians, College of Apothecaries and Surgeon’s Hall couldn’t save him.” She sighed.

“College of Surgeons and Apothec--” Jack spun away from the asari. “Tricky whore. Fuck.”

Alessia chuckled and bumped Jack’s shoulder. “Not an embarrassment to have a good mind, baby girl. Use it before you get old like me and can’t remember what your grandchildren look like any more.” She nodded over her shoulder. “Best flip that meat.”

Jack did. “So, have you read all those fucking books back there?”

“Hell no. Goddess. The krogan operatics made me vomit in my mouth, and who the fuck knows what the hanar stuff is even about? He does have some good ones back there, though: Dickens, Assimov, Ravenscroft, Blues, Horwood, Sherwood. Some of the asari transcendentalist poets are sublime.”

Jack spiced the meat then went in for the eggs. “Read some fucking turian novels once. What I could translate was pretty cool. Blood, lots of hacked up bodies, battles and shit.”

Alessia placed a pot in behind the frying pan. “If you really want to understand turians, read their poetry. Still lots of dismemberments to be found, but also some heart. They’re a deeper well than they’d lead us all to believe.”

Jack cracked the eggs in the holes between the meat and shook a little spice over them. “That one upstairs is so deep there doesn’t seem to be a bottom. Fucking annoying bastard.” She put the lid on the pan and leaned a hip against the stove.

Alessia leaned in close to Jack’s ear. “Not one he shows, baby girl. Give it time.”

“Fuck! Those lips have been out giving two credit blow jobs, get them away from my ear. Jesus on a fucking krogan!” Jack sighed. “Whatever, it’s not like I’ve got anything but time, huh?” She grumbled and turned to grab a plate. When the eggs were done, she served it up, going into the fridge to find some of that horrendous pus-like juice, and poured a glass, putting both on the counter.

“Hey, Nihlus, it looks like you might actually have an edible meal waiting down here.” Alessia yelled.

Jack spun around to look at the plate. FUCK. She let her head flop, the tip of the now very bent unicorn horn bopping her in the forehead.

“It’s also okay not to be a complete bitch all the time,” Alessia said and chuckled. 

“Shut up, whore. I’m still pissed at both of you.” Jack stomped off to the living room and threw herself into the chair in the back corner. She picked up David Copperfield for a moment, then threw it across the room. “Bastards.”

Nihlus appeared at the corner. “Thank you for supper, Jacqueline. It looks great.”

She opened her mouth to yell at him some more, but he just turned and left. “Yeah, whatever, fuckhead.”

“Come and eat, Jack,” Alessia called a moment later.

“Not fucking hungry, thanks a fucking bunch.” Jack swiveled the chair back and forth, back and forth. They left her alone for two fucking days, they could keep leaving her alone. Bastards.

About twenty minutes later, Nihlus walked in and turned on the vid screen to something that featured explosions and skycar chases. Jack turned her chair to watch, and after a few moments, moved to the far end of the couch. She didn’t look at Nihlus, and Nihlus didn’t look at her. As much as she hated to admit it, it felt good to not be alone staring at blank walls with all the shit racing around in her head that had been driving her crazy for two days.

“I’m off,” Alessia called. “I’ll see you both in the morning.”

“Goodnight, Alessia,” Nihlus called. “Drive carefully.”

“Night, blue whore. Slip in your shower, and land on your head.”

Alessia laughed as she walked to the door. “You’re such a bitch.”

“Love you too,” Jack called.

Jack sneaked sidelong glances at her captor as they finished watching the vid. He seemed pretty cool with the hooker. The salarian chick, who had to be STG or another Spectre, seemed to like him as well. Somewhere in that tight ass there had to be something likable. Some shred of something human, or whatever. So why the great flying fuck couldn’t he find a way to be cool with her?

When the movie ended, he turned off the lights and headed up to bed. Jack sat alone in the living room for a while, suddenly feeling in imminent danger of flying out of her skin. Kryik had friends. He acted like a normal guy around them. They treated him like they respected and cared about him. What did she have? 

She looked around the darkened room. Nothing. The same fucking nothing that she’d always had. It didn’t matter where she went or what she did, she always ended up alone. People fucked her over and left her. She fucked them over and left them. She’d escaped hell as a child, fought and killed her way out like Nihlus had. Where he’d found purpose, she’d been locked in a cabin for the use of the crew that found her, then sold as a slave. Maybe if someone like Kryik had busted into Teltin and blown it to hell, she would have had a chance.

**& &&**

_“You know that’s bullshit don’t you, Jack? They’re in you. They’ve always been in you. They’ll always be in you. They’ll always live inside you. They’ll always . . .”_

“No! No! Goddamn it.” She pressed her hands over her ears, trying to block out the chanting voices. Shuttered faces and hollow voices circled her, their hands rising and falling. She jumped up and ran into Nihlus’s office, rooting through the drawers until she found elastics, a red marker, and a sewing kit. Clutching her finds close to her chest, she ran up to the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Dropping everything on the bench in the shower, she organized them with trembling hands, lining things up in the order she’d need them. She looked over on the shelf, needing the hairbrush that Nihlus had used after he showered her. Unable to find it, she jumped up and looked through the cabinet behind the mirror, finally finding it in the top drawer of the vanity, along with a small mirror with a stand.

She let out a half-laugh/half-sob of victory and ran back into the shower. She set the brush at the beginning of the row and set up the small mirror behind everything else. Perfect. Looking down at the perfect, evenly spaced row of items, her racing heart began to slow, her breathing deepening, the chanting voices in the back of her mind stilling. 

Turning on only the hot water, she stood under it, tilting her head back so that the pummice cleanser rinsed out and down her back. When she checked the bottle that Nihlus had used on her hair, it had been replaced by a new one, so she filled her palm with it and lathered it through her gritty locks. It took a few times to wash it clean. By the time she shut the hot water off, her skin had been burned a bright red, almost purple. It hurt but it felt good, clean. Finally clean.

She sat cross-legged in front of the bench and brushed out her hair. When it was tangle-free, she separated it into four strands, braiding each so tightly that her head screamed in protest the entire time. Each chocolate brown braid finished and tied off, she pulled them up, weaving them into an intricate knot on top of her head, tucking in the ends so that they stayed in place. Checking it all the way around to be sure she’d done it perfectly, Jack let out a long, wavering sigh and closed her eyes.

_“You let them in! Don’t touch me! Tainted.”_

Opening her eyes, she reached for the marker and painted her full lips with the brilliant, bright red. It was almost the perfect shade. Filling in every mm, she rubbed them together before the ink dried and smiled, a bright, open smile like sunshine spreading across her face. Slowly, the smile faded, the light dimming behind a cloud. She took the pen and drew three very precise crosses, one above either breast and one just below the hollow between her clavicles. 

Replacing the cap on the marker, she took a deep breath, building the wall one carefully, precisely placed brick at a time. She set the pen down, making sure it lined up precisely with the rest of her equipment. Placing her right fingers on the bench, Jack made sure that the edge of the wood pressed along the border of her palm, then repeated the same with the left. Right foot uncurled, sweeping slowly across the tile until she could put weight on the ball of her foot. She lifted slightly, her leg crying out at taking weight at such an awkward angle, her thigh muscle shaking, and swept the left foot out in precisely the same manner. Balanced on the balls of both feet now, she stood, keeping her back as straight as she could.

Standing upright, Jack squared her shoulders then bent down, folding at the waist, legs and back as straight as she could manage. She picked up the hairbrush, then straightened. Taking a deep breath, she twisted her right arm behind her, and as hard as she could manage, slapped the hairbrush into the middle of her back. Repeating the blows, she hit her buttocks and the backs of her thighs, then lowered herself back to the tile, in the exact reverse of how she’d stood.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the simple, clean motions of the ritual building the wall until the screams only whispered through. She leaned back, bringing both knees up with the same precision as she’d used to stand, opening herself. Using the hair brush once more, she thrust the handle into herself three times again as hard as she could manage. She rolled back onto her tailbone, lifting the front of her pelvis, and slid the brush handle down to press against her anus. Gritting her teeth hard, she thrust it all the way in three hard, fast times, then replaced the brush on the bench, lining it up perfectly.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, calming the tremble in her belly as her body stung, complaining in a way that made her juices run. She felt the first trickle of them between her pussy lips as she picked up the sewing kit, took out a needle and threaded it with red thread. Everything disappeared before the perfect, soothing movements of her ritual. The wall built, separating her from the voices, the screaming, and even the pain, leaving her free, floating in a black, waveless sea.

Moving the mirror to the edge of the bench, she leaned in, reaching up with her left hand to pinch as thin a piece of the border of her bottom lip as she could hold on to. She brought up the needle, pressed it to the skin.

**& &&**

A heavy, warm hand lowered to press to the top of her head. “Jacqueline, stop.”

Jack jumped, letting out a scream more of shame and embarrassment than fear and scrambled to her feet. Nihlus held out his hand, but she backed away.

“Jacqueline. I’m not going to hurt you.” He stepped toward her again, laying his hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, come on.” As he worked her out of the corner of the shower, he slid his hand behind her back, guiding her toward the vanity. He sort of trapped her between his body and the vanity, and pulled out a cloth, wetting and soaping it before scrubbing at the crosses and bright red lips she’d drawn on her body.

Jack pressed into him, turning her body until her tits were pressed against his side. Her hand slid down his stomach, and in between his groin plates, grasping him through his sheath, stroking a couple of times before he was able to grip her wrist and gently push her hand away. She whined, and pressed up into him, kissing the hard plate of his mouth. “Come on, please. I want you to fuck me. Please. I need you to fuck me.”

He pushed her away, his hands on her shoulders. “No, Jacqueline. No. I told you that I’ll never take advantage of you, and I won’t.”

“You said not until I asked. I’m asking.” She pushed her fists against him. “What the fuck, Nihlus. What’s wrong with me? What’s so untouchable about me?”

He touched his brow to hers. “It’s not about that, Jacqueline. It’s about you being able to trust me to do what is best for you, always.” He pulled back and returned to scrubbing the marker off her skin the best he could. When he finished, he undid her hair, stroking his talons through it a few times before he sighed and looked into her eyes. “You’re okay.” When she just glared at him, his mandibles fluttered in a turian smile. “You are.” He nodded toward the door. “Bed.”

Jack stared into his eyes for a couple more moments, then pulled away. Bastard. Count on a fucker to keep his word and fuck a girl when she asked. Her whole body throbbed with need, aching hard. She considered going downstairs and finding something to drill herself with until she came. She needed to come.

Instead, she turned into his dark bedroom, stopping just inside the door. The covers lay thrown back from his side of the bed, where he’d jumped out to come stop her from getting some fucking peace. At the foot of the bed, she could see her dog bed, blanket and pillow. It didn’t even take a decision. No way she was going to lay there next to that fucker while he just dozed off like nothing had ever happened. She plunked herself down on the thick foam mat and curled up, spreading the blanket haphazardly, and closed her eyes against the shame of being walked in on and the pounding ache deep in her gut. Damn him. Fucking prick.

The hallway went dark, then she heard Nihlus walk into the room. He chuckled softly. “That’s my girl.” He approached and crouched next to her. “I don’t want you to sleep down here tonight, Jacqueline. Come on.”

“No. I’ll sleep on my dog bed like a good little pet. Leave me the fuck alone. Bastard.” She curled up into a smaller ball.

“Okay then.” He grabbed the blanket off his bed and pulled it off, then maneuvered in behind Jack, lying curled around her. “Good thing I got the extra extra large one. I don’t do well sleeping on the floor. It’s too cold and hard.” He settled his covers over them both and wriggled around a bit until he was settled, pressed along her back.

“Get off my dog bed,” she grumbled, but it was half-hearted. His heat warmed her, and she started to uncurl. 

“You don’t have to feel ashamed about what you were doing in there, Jacqueline. People who have been through a lot of mental and physical pain create rituals to help them keep order when their thoughts and feelings start running wild.” His arm slipped under her head. “Had a few of my own once. I’m going to teach you something. You’ll find it useful.”

“Screw off. Just leave me in peace to whack myself off and go to sleep.”

His other arm slid over her side, the pads of his talons pressing into her gut just above her pussy. “Move my fingers to where it hurts.”

“Fuck you.”

“Just do it for Spirits sake. I need to get some sleep.”

Jack grinned at his tone of voice, he was teasing her. She did as he asked and moved his hand to where the need still throbbed inside.

“Close your eyes. Focus on where my fingers are. When you breathe in, imagine the air is rushing through here and tighten up the muscles down there.”

Jack turned over the best she could, craning her head to look at him. “You’re fucking nuts.”

“Do it.”

She sighed and laid back down, doing as he told her. “Ooo,” she murmured as she did it and a soft wave of pleasure rolled through her.

“Good. Now, when you breathe out, the opposite… the air rushes backwards, the muscles all relax. Breathe out slowly.” His voice lowered to a soft, calming rumble.

Jack breathed in and out as he’d told her and gradually the ache eased. She let out a sigh as he pulled his hand away. “Where you’d learn that?”

“Someday I might tell you. Now go to sleep.”

His talons stroked her hair softly as she relaxed into his arms, easing toward sleep even before she knew it, feeling completely, aggravatingly safe.


End file.
